The Law Hath Slept: Now 'tis Awake
by Assimbya
Summary: After the ending of the story, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur find that the government has finally decided to take an interest in their recent actions. And, veiwed under the cold scrutiny of the court, those actions may not seem so reasonable. [Warning for sexual and physical violence.] [note: no longer being updated.]
1. Arrest

_Warrant for the Arrest of Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker_

_Issued on the fourth of April, year of our Lord 1894._

_She has been accused of the murders of Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and Miss Adriana Dracula, as well as conspiring with those who attempted the murder of Count Vlad Dracula._

_She will be brought before the Courts of Assizes with Mr. Jonathan Harker, Lord Arthur Godalming and Dr. John Seward on the sixteenth of April, year of our Lord 1894. Until that time she and those accused of conspiring with her shall be held in prison._

_This warrant has been issued by the Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury._

Mina had been teaching at the time. Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, it had been. It was her first year teaching a class on her own rather than simply being the assistant schoolmistress, and her class was mainly made up of twelve year olds. She had just instructed a short blonde girl named Rebecca to read Isabella's speech in which she pled for her brother's life when Mina heard the door to the classroom pushed open and several police officers enter, the tramp of their boots heavy on the floor. That moment became forever imprinted on her mind, how she lifted her head, pushing her hair away from her face. There were murmurs from the students, and then one of the policemen said in a gravelly voice, holding up a piece of thick paper, "We have a warrant for the arrest of Wilhelmina Harker."

The words hadn't registered for an instant, even as the students began to gasp. It was probably only a second, but to her it felt like forever until she began to panic slightly, her mind repeating over and over _I'm innocent, I'm innocent, I didn't do anything wrong._ She somehow had the presence of mind to speak. "What are the charges?"

The policeman holding the warrant cleared his throat and began to read. "She has been accused of the murders of Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and conspiring to attempt the murder of Count Vlad Dracula."

_That _was when she really began to panic, remembering Professor Van Helsing coming back with a bloody stake as she saw in her mind's eye his knife coming down and severing head from neck three times, each time horrible in a new way. Professor Van Helsing who had died a few months ago of some commonplace illness that no one had expected the genius doctor to fall victim to.

The injustice in the fact that she was being arrested for this, that the legal system had finally decided to do something _now, _while the Count was able to kill all those sailors, and Mrs. Westerna, and poor dear Lucy, and Renfield and brave Quincey without anyone interfering, made her want to protest, to yell. But then another part of what they had said sunk in.

To _attempt _the murder of Count Vlad Dracula?

She knew then that there was no point in fighting, in protesting her unjust imprisonment. She lowered her head, and she heard the tramp of boots near her again, and then she felt someone putting shackles around her wrists. Ah, yes, she was a dangerous murderess now, and such precautions had to be taken. Almost instinctively she tried to pull her hands apart, to test the strength of the shackles, but they held firm. Determinedly, she willed herself not to cry, not to show weakness. It was as though the Count was there now, and she couldn't let him see her weak, could she?

Her students were whispering and some of the bolder ones were asking questions of the policemen, but she made no attempt to talk to them. For an instant she worried that it might trouble them to see their teacher arrested, but she only dwelled on that for a moment before beginning to worry about Jonathan.

_Warrant for the arrest of Mr. Jonathan Harker._

_Issued on the fourth of April, year of our Lord 1894._

_He has been accused of attempting the murder of Count Vlad Dracula, of conspiring to accomplish the murders of Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and Miss Adriana Dracula, and of breaking into the London residence of Count Vlad Dracula (under the name Count Vlad Deville)._

_He will be brought before the Courts of Assizes with Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Lord Arthur Godalming and Dr. John Seward on the sixteenth of April, year of our Lord 1894. Until that time he and those accused of conspiring with him shall be held in prison._

_This warrant has been issued by the Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury._

On April fourth, Jonathan went to work late. Mina had left early, as she always did, but he hadn't needed to be at the office until a little later, so he made himself another cup of tea and decided to read for a few minutes. But that was soon interrupted by an insistent rapping on the front door. Sighing, Jonathan put down his book and went to answer the door.

Standing outside were three policemen, their expressions determinedly stern. "Are you Mr. Jonathan Harker?" asked one of them.

Jonathan frowned, worried about what these policemen could need from him. Perhaps there had been some sort of legal trouble, and someone had forged a document with his name or some such thing? He was sure that there could be no reason why the policemen actually wanted him; he was, after all, a good, law-abiding citizen.

He ran a hand through his white hair, a nervous habit, as he replied in the affirmative. "Yes, I am."

"Well, we're supposed to arrest you. We have a warrant here."

Jonathan shuddered, but didn't, _couldn't _believe it. "I'm sure you must have made a mistake. I haven't done anything wrong. Perhaps you confused my name with someone else's –"

But the one who had been replying to his previous statements spoke again, seeming almost amused at Jonathan's denial of the situation, and looked down at the slip of paper (presumably the warrant) that he held in one hand. "It says on this warrant that you attempted to murder Count Vlad Dracula, conspired with others to murder a bunch of women with that same last name, and broke into Count Dracula's London house. If all that isn't true, then you can take if up with the Judge at your trial. We're only here to take you to prison."

The realization of what was going on seemed to come to Jonathan in one fell sweep, and it was so horrific that it reminded him of some sort of nightmare. "Oh God…"

Even in his shock, he was dimly aware of the rattling of chains, and then the voice of one of the police officers that hadn't yet spoken. "Arms out. We need to shackle you."

As if in a trance, Jonathan lifted his arms, the absurd thought coming into his head that he would now surely be late to work. He closed his eyes as he felt the metal being fastened around his wrists, and only then did it occur to him to wonder: Was Mina being arrested as well?

_Warrant for the arrest of Dr. John Seward._

_Issued on the fourth of April, year of our Lord 1894._

_He has been accused of the murder of R. M. Renfield, of conspiring to accomplish the murders of Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and Miss Adriana Dracula, and of conspiring to attempt the murder of Count Vlad Dracula._

_He will be brought before the Court of Assizes with Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Mr. Jonathan Harker and Lord Arthur Godalming on the sixteenth of April, year of our Lord 1894. Until that time, he and those accused of conspiring with him shall be held in prison._

_This warrant has been issued by Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury._

That day, Jack was sitting in his study filling out monotonous paperwork. It would the most tedious part of his job, but necessary. His mind had only begun to stray from the task when he heard a knock on the door. Absentmindedly, he called out, "Come in."

It was Amy, the maid, and she barely waited a second before speaking. "There are two policemen at the door to see you, Sir."

Jack only allowed himself a brief second of worry before saying, "Send them up," like any good, professional Doctor. But as soon as Amy left, possibilities about the reason for the policemen's visit began to enter his mind at a swift pace, one after the other. Could they be bringing back one of the inmates that he had discharged who had been causing trouble? If so, Jack sincerely hoped that it wasn't Bailey. He had seemed to be doing so well when they discharged him, and it would be such a severe disappointment to have him brought back to them like this…

But Jack barely had time to consider such things, for the door to his study was soon abruptly opened – no knock this time – and two policemen entered, one short and one tall, the tall one holding a slip of cream colored paper of the sort that official documents were printed on, and the other holding a pair of handcuffs. "We're here to arrest you," said the tall one.

This was simply impossible. Jack had tried his best to abide by the law at all times, and, to his knowledge, he had not broken it. And even if he had accidentally filled out something wrong on a form or some such thing, that would not be the sort of thing that he would be _arrested _for. And so surprise made him stutter. "Wh…why?"

This time, it was the shorter officer who spoke. "Because you've been accused of murder and attempted murder. Of R.M. Renfield, Count Dracula, Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and Miss Adriana Dracula, the warrant says. Now we're going to have to bring you with us to the prison, and we're supposed to have you shackled, so you better not struggle. We've both dealt with more dangerous murderers than you."

Something within Jack exploded with indignation. "I'm not a murderer! Renfield was my _patient, _and I was utterly horrified to find him dead! As for the Count…" There, Jack's voice trailed off. He remembered Quincey, his knife bloody with the Count's tainted blood, the Count fading into dust. Surely, he wasn't wholly innocent of that murder at least, even if it was likely the most justified murder ever committed.

But while he was lost in consideration, he felt the shackles being fastened around his wrists. His sleeves were rolled up, so he felt the cold, rusty metal directly against his skin. One of the officers grabbed his arm the second after fastening the shackles there and said, his voice impatient, "Come on," as he began to drag Jack toward the door.

And what could he do but follow?

_Warrant for the Arrest of Lord Arthur Godalming._

_Issued on the fourth of April, year of our Lord 1894._

_He has been accused of the murder of Count Vlad Dracula, and conspiring with those who attempted the murder of. Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula and Miss Adriana Dracula, as well as breaking into the London residence of Count Vlad Dracula (under the name Count Vlad Deville)._

_He will be brought before the Courts of Assizes with Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Mr. Jonathan Harker, and Dr. John Seward on the sixteenth of April, year of our Lord 1894. Until that time he and those accused of conspiring with him shall be held in prison._

_This warrant has been issued by the Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury._

Arthur's younger sister, Alice, had convinced him to give a party. Truly, her intentions were good, for she had been doing her absolute best to help him get over Lucy and Quincey's deaths, but she didn't seem to realize that pretending to be pleasant to a bunch of people who he hardly knew was not the way to do that. It used to be that the only way he enjoyed parties was either Lucy or Quincey's company – for they both loved parties, and were charming and kind and wonderful at all of them – and so now every young woman who tried to flirt with him reminded Arthur of his fiancée, and every young man who tried to speak to him reminded him of his old friend. And even talking to the older gentlemen there didn't help – he saw echoed in all their eyes the image of his father, who had also died during all that a year ago, but not as a casualty of the Count's malice.

And so it was while he was listening to Miss Cecily Weaver prattling on about something, and quite truly wishing for an interruption, when the front door was pushed violently open, and everyone sitting in the parlor turned to see four policemen entering. There were gasps from all the high bred nobles sitting there, and Alice, as the hostess, stood up and practically shouted, her voice filled with righteous indignation, "What right do you have to barge in on the homes of respectable people?"

"We're sorry to bother you, miss," said one of them, inclining his head a little in what might have been a hint of a bow, "we just need to see Lord Arthur Godalming."

Arthur felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he stood up nevertheless, doing his very best to keep his voice from shaking. "That would be me."

"You're under arrest," said another one of the policemen without ceremony, the boredom in his voice making it sound like he had done this a thousand times today.

If there had been gasps from the guests at the unannounced arrival of the policemen, they were multiplied tenfold now. Cecily Weaver began to inch away from him, and he heard her whisper to another girl, "I always thought there was something not quite right about that man…"

"What have I done?" Arthur asked, nearly whispering. But even as he said that, he knew that it must have something to do with that whole awful mess with the Count. Often during that they had all done things that were perhaps not quite in keeping with societal norms, though he had never thought that they were the sorts of things that he would end up being _arrested _for.

"Read the charges yourself," said the first policeman who had spoken, and he handed Arthur a piece of paper that turned out to be a warrant for his arrest. Looking over them, he saw that he had been correct about the reason for his arrest. And yet, it was worse than he had imagined. He was being accused of _murder._

As though in reply to his very thoughts, the policeman who had handed him the warrant said, "Now, as you can see, though are some serious crimes there. We're going to have to bring you to prison."

He didn't even have a chance to think about that, because Alice, who was reading over his shoulder, asked him, her face showing all the confusion and horror that Arthur felt, and her voice thick with desperation as she pleaded for him to tell her that all of this wasn't true, that it was all some awful mistake and none of this should have been connected with him in the first place, "What's he talking about, Art? What's going on?"

But Arthur had to be the responsible older brother and head of his family. He couldn't worry Alice; he couldn't show his own panic and disbelief. He would go to prison like a good citizen who had nothing to hide. He would talk to his family lawyer who had, after all, gotten his relatives out of quite bad scrapes, and would do so at the earliest possible time. And, most of all, he wouldn't get angry. "I'll explain it all later, Alice. Don't worry about me. Just telegraph our lawyer and arrange a meeting as soon as possible."

She nodded, and looked about to say something else, but appeared to have decided against it. And so Arthur turned away from the group of guests in the parlor, resolutely not listening to anything they were saying, and lifted his hands to be shackled, trying not to wonder about the future.


	2. Indignities of Imprisonment

_File of Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker upon her admission to prison (before the time of her trial)_

_Initial results of the physical examination of April fourth, 1895: Mrs. Harker is possessed of a round birthmark at the middle of her spine and a small scar on the third finger of her left hand. She displayed no signs of any contagious illness or parasites upon her person._

_Mrs. Harker was, upon her admission to this institution, extremely uncooperative and troublesome._

_Number Assigned: This process has been delayed until after her trial and probable conviction._

_(Note: Because of the serious nature of the crimes Mrs. Harker has been accused of and the convincing nature of the evidence presented so far, she and those others accused of being involved in said crimes are to be treated in the same manner as those who have already been convicted of their crimes, up until such a time in which they shall be able to clear their names of all charges.)_

Not a word was said to Mina during the long carriage ride to the prison. She was relieved at this, for it gave her time to collect her thoughts, something which she had found little time to do while shackles were being fastened around her wrists. At that point, she almost immediately began thinking of strategies, things to say that would convince _someone _with authority that they were all innocent, but all the plans ended up coming to nothing, because, clearly, the Count had found a way of defeating them that they had no way of escaping from. Anything that she said in her own defense could easily be countered by a statement of his, and which one of them would have more credibility when she was standing in court accused of murder?

And so she spent that carriage ride in silence, her head lowered, her hands folded loosely together in her lap in a manner that seemed unnatural because of the shackles around her wrists, to all outward appearances defeated and docile. But, within her, there was a burning determination to continue fighting that overcame but did not obliterate the seeming lack of a solution to her present situation.

After what must have been quite a long time, but seemed to last an instant in the world of Mina's thoughts, the carriage stopped, and she, though she could not see anything outside of the windowless carriage, assumed that they must be at the prison. When the door was pulled open, she stepped out and saw that she was correct. The prison, which was not a building that she had come across ever before, was an unappealing, intimidating building of grey stone with few windows. For a moment, she faltered before it, but only for that one moment, as she quickly lifted her head and followed where the officers beckoned her.

She was led briskly up a few stairs to the front door, and then inside it to what must be the front hall of the building, though it was so blank and monotonous that, were it not for its position in the building, it would have been impossible to distinguish it as any specific room. An officer (and she hadn't been able to distinguish them from one another either, nor had she tried) grabbed one of her shackled wrists and pulled her down another hallway to the left, this one long and ending in a single door at the end, the way she always imagined interrogation rooms looked, with a long walk leading up to them giving the prisoner time to imagine what horrors might be waiting inside.

At that moment she was suddenly afraid.

But she kept walking with her head lifted high, for to give into fear would be to give the Count what he wanted out of this. If she let herself fear even at this, then she would fall to her knees begging him for freedom eventually, and she would not make herself his slave.

Eventually, they reached the door. One of the officers knocked upon it three times, and, after a second, opened it, leading her inside.

The room had some of the trappings of the office of a doctor; there were shelves with what she vaguely recognized as medical instruments, as well as a few bottles, presumably of medical drugs. There was a desk in one corner, and an examining table – with shackle-like rings of metal that seemed to be made to hold a patient down by the wrists and ankles. Within the room there was one man with pale hair turning to grey in some places, dressed in a white coat and presumably a doctor. Near him there were three men in a uniform that she didn't recognize. They had the look of prison guards.

One of the officers who had arrested Mina handed her warrant to the doctor, who read it with a look of recognition in his face. "Ah, yes, the murderess. I heard about her earlier. Now _here's _a case that ought to prove notorious."

The officer nodded, and there was something of a smile on his face. "I'll see you at the trial, then?"

The doctor smiled back. The two were obviously familiar with one another. "Certainly."

After that, the officers left, and Mina was alone in the room with the doctor and prison guards, completely unaware of whatever was about to happen to her.

The doctor took a small key out of the drawer of the desk, and walked over to Mina, swiftly unlocking her shackles and putting them down on the desk. The absence of the cold metal around her wrists seemed to loosen her tongue, and a flood of words poured out of her, almost without her willing them to. "I shouldn't be here. It's the Count, the one who must be accusing me of all this, there's something that you need to know, he's lying, they're all his crimes, and I haven't done anything –"

But she was immediately cut off by the doctor's voice, which was dismissive, crushing any hope that anyone in this room might be sympathetic to her plight. "Inmates at this prison aren't supposed to speak unless they're spoken to Mrs. Harker," he said, walking behind her as he spoke, "Now, let's get a look at you." She didn't even react to the statement then, because, almost before she realized it, she felt the doctor beginning to unbutton the back of her dress.

Her reaction to that was almost instinctive as she turned around, grabbing the doctor's wrist and digging her nails into it before slapping him across the face.

Unfortunately, however, the three prison guards had a reaction to that as immediate as hers had been. They rushed forward, the fist of one of them colliding with her cheek as another directed a blow at her ribs and a third at her left arm. The sudden combined pain of that caused her to fall to the floor, where she remained, breathing heavily through the pain.

Meanwhile, the doctor walked to the desk, taking out a sheet of paper and beginning to write something, speaking to Mina at the same time, his voice unaffected by the events of the past few seconds, "Mrs. Harker, you have resisted physical examination and have assaulted an employee of the government in the process. These are fats that I now shall be obliged to add to the record of your crimes."

"There's no point," said the guard who had hit her in the ribs, "she's probably going to get hanged anyway, so there's not much more they can do to her. Have her punished according to the prison rules. She's one of the convicts now anyway."

The doctor only considered this for a moment. "Very well. Note her down for twenty lashes tomorrow. For now, get her on her feet so I can undress her, and then put her in the examining table. It seems that such measures will be necessary for this one."

Mina heard this conversation with a sense of shocked disbelief. Surely, she thought then, this wasn't actually going to _happen, _surely all these things were just threats. They weren't going to strip her of her clothes and examine her; they weren't going to whip her like a slave or…a convict.

Oh, gods, they _were._

She had no rights now, she realized as the guards hauled her unresisting body to her feet, one of them holding each of her arm. They could do anything they liked to her and the rest of the world would say that she deserved it because she was a murderer. Even the trial wouldn't make any difference. After all, who had ever heard of a trial in which it had?

But the trial _had _to make a difference, she thought as the doctor finished unbuttoning her dress and pulled it off her body, then doing to same to her camisole. If she didn't believe that she would be able to convince the court of her innocence, then she would never find the strength to continue living. And Jonathan, Arthur, Jack…if they were being arrested at just this moment, she had to believe for their sakes.

Soon it became difficult to concentrate on those thoughts, for the doctor had finished unlacing her corset and was now pulling each of her petticoats off, prompting lewd whistles from the guards, whistles that the doctor made no attempt to halt. She was soon down to her chemise, and felt terribly vulnerable. She hoped for a brief instant that the doctor would leave her that amount of clothing, at least, but, of course, she had no such luck. As she began to finally struggle, the thin protective layer of cotton was stripped from her, and then her shoes, stockings, and finally her drawers were taken off. And so she stood, naked, shivering and terrified, in the center of the room.

It seemed to her, a feeling caused – as she was well aware – by only irrational and disjointed thoughts, that the Count was watching all of this and laughing at what he had already, so easily, reduced her to. And, at that, there was nothing that she could do but hang her head in shame, because it was true. She _had _been easily demoralized, by only a few blows and a simple removal of her clothing. Was she so fragile that nothing but layers of cotton and linen held her together?

No. She could not be.

She barely had time to consider that, because the ordeal was not over. With some word from the doctor that Mina didn't quite catch, the guards dragged her to the examining tables that she had noticed earlier, placing her in it and fastening the rings of metal around her wrists and ankles, holding her completely and totally in place.

The doctor began to examine her then, leaving no spot on her body untouched. Her hair he sorted through systematically, seeming to be looking for lice. He forced both her eyelids open so far that they hurt, and did the same to each of her nostrils and ears. He forced his fingers roughly into her mouth and, from there, pushed it open as far as her jaws would go, nearly making her gag. He examined every inch of skin on her neck, chest, and arms. He examined the most private parts of her body with no less scrutiny. He event separated each of her toes, looking between them as if there would some key to her guilt there. He then unfastened the rings of metal from around her wrists only to turn her over onto her stomach in an ungentle manner which caused the now forming bruises on her body to hurt in a sharp, stabbing manner, which almost made her cry out, but she suppressed that instinct, belatedly trying to regain some amount of dignity even as he examined the other side of her body, an examination no less invasive than the other.

Finally it was over and she was allowed to get off the examining table. Quickly, before she did anything else, she grabbed her chemise and pulled it on, but before she could continue redressing, one of the guards said (the doctor had gone back to his desk and was recording something hastily), "It's to the baths now. You won't need all your clothes for that, and you won't need them afterwards until you get out – which we all know won't happen. So, come on."

He grabbed her arm while reaching over to pick up the warrant still lying on the desk and began leading her to a door at the other end of the room form the one she had entered by, seeming to now know better than to expect her to obey anything on her own. But she didn't resist, not now. After all, it couldn't get _worse. _Not yet, at least.

She didn't pay attention to where they were going until they had reached the baths, a long, narrow room with five stalls on each side; only a few inches between the stalls on one side and the stalls on the other. The room was barely illuminated by a dim, grayish light coming from unwashed window near the ceiling. As they entered, a dark haired woman wearing a high-necked grey dress approached them. The guard handed her the warrant. "This is Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker. She needs a bath and then clothes. She hasn't been assigned a number yet, so just put her in any open cell." The woman nodded, taking the warrant from the prison guard (were they just passing the thing around between them?) and leading Mina towards one of the stalls. "Get in," she said as Mina heard the departing footsteps of the guard, "I'll go get you some clothes."

Mina felt slightly better away from the claustrophobic terror of the office, and still without shackles, but the mere few inches of water in the wooden tub she faced was the dull brown color, and looked as though it was more likely to dirty her than make her clean. Swallowing hard, she gritted her teeth and pulled off her chemise before stepping into the tub and sitting down, allowing the stagnant brown water to swirl lazily around her chest but somewhat unwilling to completely submerge herself in it.

As she bathed (if it could be called that, for she was certainly not getting any cleaner) her attention was caught by the sound of splashing from the stall across from hers, startling in the near silence of the room (she had thought herself the only one there without having looked around at all). Glancing at it, for there were no doors on the stalls, she saw a girl splashing in the water of the tub opposite…a girl who looked enough like Lucy, that, for an instant, Mina thought her dear friend had returned to her.

At second glance, they didn't look quite the same. This girl had hair of a more golden color than Lucy's, and eyes closer to grey than Lucy's had ever been. But she still looked remarkably like Mina's friend, and when she turned to look at Mina, a smile on her face, the resemblance was even more striking.

"They called you Wilhelmina-something, didn't they?" she asked Mina, her question catching Mina off guard for an instant.

"Mina…you can call me Mina," she said after realizing what she had been asked.

The girl's smile really was winning. "Nice to meet you, Mina. I'm Elizabeth. What've you done to be brought here?"

She didn't want to answer the question, but she did. "They say I murdered three women…I didn't. Not really. It's a long story."

There was sympathy but also amusement in Elizabeth's voice. "It always is. I'm in for burglary. I'll be out in a couple years." She frowned, seeming to notice something, "Where did you get those bruises?"

Mina's voice was suddenly flat with the reminder of the recent events. "I fought when they tried to examine me."

A low whistle came from Elizabeth's throat, one that was somewhat sympathetic. "Are they going to try you for that too?"

Mina shook her head. "No. They assigned me twenty lashes."

At this, however, Elizabeth laughed, as if the seriousness of the situation had suddenly been taken away. "You're starting early. Most people don't get whipped for a week, at least. Or until after their trial."

Anything Mina might have said in response was cut off, as the dark haired woman returned, carrying a pile of clothes and dumping them in front of Mina. "Put these on," she said, her voice betraying no emotion whatsoever. Mina nodded and got out of the water, squeezing the remnants of dirty water out of her hair and looking for a towel or sheet to dry herself with, but finding none. Sighing inwardly, she resigned herself to damp clothes for a little while at least, and looked to see what clothing she had been given.

It was precious little, really. There was a thin dress, slightly too short for her, in a garish canary yellow, and a single petticoat trimmed with yellowing lace that was falling off at some points. There were also coarse wool stockings patterned in stripes of blue and red, and a white hat, as well as worn out boots that Mina could tell from a glance would not fit her. She put the clothing on, feeling uncomfortable and completely unlike herself, but it was better than nothing, after all.

Elizabeth was getting into clothing identical to Mina's, except that her dress was a bright red rather than canary yellow. Then the woman gestured for the two of them to follow her, and they did, Elizabeth taking a hold of Mina's hand with a surprising amount of trust for someone who had only just met her, and Mina could briefly imagine that she was holding Lucy's hand.

_File of Dr. John Seward upon his admission to prison (before the time of his trial)_

_Initial results of the physical examination of April fourth, 1895: Dr. Seward is possessed of several scars upon both of his hands which he said, without being prompted for an explanation, came from work done while he was in medical school. He displayed no signs of any contagious illness or parasites upon his person._

_Dr. Seward was, upon the time of his admission to this institution, cooperative and easy to deal with._

_Number Assigned: This process has been delayed until after his trial and probable conviction._

_(Note: Because of the serious nature of the crimes Dr. Seward has been accused of and the convincing nature of the evidence presented so far, he and those others accused of being involved in said crimes are to be treated in the same manner as those who have already been convicted of their crimes, up until such a time in which they shall be able to clear their names of all charges.)_

Jack submitted to the required physical examination with all the professionalism of any doctor who understood the importance of such examinations to the medical process. Though, he had to admit to himself, the way that this particular examination was conducted was quite unprofessional, as the doctor neither explained what he was about to do nor why he was doing it. But he did understand the necessity of such procedures, and also understood the necessity of requiring all prisoners to bathe immediately after being admitted to the prison. But it was very different to understand all of it conceptually, and to experience it. And, despite all of his rationalization, he couldn't stop the instinct that made him feel humiliated at being forced to walk through the cold hallways of the prison wearing very little clothing until they reached the baths.

And, upon reaching the baths, almost all of Jack's respect for the medical procedures conducted by the prison evaporated. The room was made up of two rows of stalls containing one tub of water each, with no privacy between stall, which in and of itself wasn't despicable, if somewhat uncomfortable for Jack (he recalled what he had read as a student of the baths in the Roman Era, and thought that surely the type of modesty that was virtuous in their time was perhaps not universal, and there could be as much virtue in that sort of sexless nudity as in the modesty admired in this era), but the water within the tubs was dirty, brown and slimy, looking as though it hadn't been changed for a long time. Almost forgetting for an instant that he was in this prison because he had been accused of murder, Jack turned to one of the guards who had led him in and said, "This is completely unsanitary. This could cause anyone who bathes in such water to contract one of the many illness that can be transmitted through such things."

But the guard only sniggered. "So, the murderer thinks that our water isn't good enough for him? Well, it's all he's going to get, so he better not scorn it!"

At that, the guard pushed him into the tub of water, and Jack, caught off his guard, had his nose and mouth filled with the brown water, which was every bit as slimy and disgusting as it looked. As he sputtered and managed to sit up, the guards left, laughing and congratulating one another, he heard a familiar voice coming from the stall next to him.

"Jack?"

"Art?" He replied, not sure whether this was a welcome or unwelcome surprise. He certainly didn't want Arthur to have been arrested as well as him, but, he had to admit, he felt a selfish relief that he had someone else here with him. Turning to look toward the source of the voice, he saw Arthur, looking embarrassed as being seen by Jack in a bath of dirty water, but his face also showed the same relief that Jack felt.

"It's so good to see you, Jack…well not like this but…" Arthur seemed to be struggling for words, which seemed slightly unnecessary, as Jack knew completely what he was saying.

"It's all right, I understand," Jack said hastily, and there was a brief awkward silence. Arthur broke it soon, speaking quickly as though, if he didn't get the words out now, he would never have a chance again to do so, which was, perhaps, true. "I asked Alice to call our family lawyer, and she should have an appointment for us soon. Don't worry; we'll get out of here. You, and Mina, and Jonathan and I won't have to be stuck in this hell for too long."

This caught Jack off guard, though it didn't quite _surprise_ him. "Have Mina and Jonathan been arrested as well?" he asked, though the question was quite redundant.

Arthur nodded, looking at Jack with surprise in his eyes, "Did you not read your warrant?"

Jack was beginning to get an ominous feeling about all of this. "No. The officers who arrested me merely read the charges to me."

Arthur's next words were hesitant, careful. "Then you don't know…about the Count?"

Surely the ominous feeling was, horribly, terribly, correct! "I don't."

As he spoke the few, meaningful words, Arthur didn't look at Jack. "He's alive."

He was _alive? _The horror that had destroyed the lives of Lucy and Renfield and Quincey and nearly of the rest of them, the horror that they had worked so long and hard to destroy, was still _alive? _

Jack had no idea what to say to that, nor indeed if there was anything he could have said to it. But he didn't have to, because the prison guards returning, carrying piles of clothes, and more guards emerged from the other direction, dragging with them none other but Jonathan.

Jonathan was wearing even less clothing that Jack had been wearing when he entered the baths, and there was a strange sort of terror in his eyes. Upon seeing Jack and Arthur, he looked even more relieved than either of them had been upon seeing one another. Like Jack, he looked revolted upon seeing the bathwater, but, unlike Jack, he willing took off the remnants of his clothing and got into it after a brief pause. Before they had a chance to say anything to another, however, the guards who had brought the clothes said to Jack and Arthur, "Put these on. They'll be what you wear while in prison here."

Jack quite willingly got out of the dirty water, peeling off his old clothes, which were wet from having been pushed into the bath by the guards. But, examining the clothes that had been left for him, he found that they were only a brown shirt and a pair of trousers of the same color, both rather threadbare. Jack was sure those two single pieces of clothing would offer little warmth if any warmth was necessary, but he put them on nevertheless.

Arthur, however, was starting at his clothing, which a shirt in the same color as Jack's and trousers of a bright yellow, with some disgust. "Can't I wear my own clothing?" he asked one of the guards.

"No, you have to wear party clothes now. Put it on now. We don't want any trouble from you."

Reluctantly, Arthur did as the guard said.

After that, the two of them were led away to their cells, without the chance to say even one word to Jonathan. Jack soon found out that his cell consisted of a board that was apparently supposed to be a bed, and a reeking bucket in one corner. More unsanitary conditions. Sighing, Jack decided that he would try to go to sleep. Maybe he would wake up and this would have all been a strange dream.

_File of Mr. Jonathan Harker upon his admission to prison (before the time of his trial)_

_Initial results of the physical examination of April fourth, 1895: Mr. Harker is possessed of a scar on his right knee and his hair has turned prematurely white, a subject on which, when questioned, he refused to speak about. He displayed no signs of any contagious illness or parasites upon his person._

_Mr. Harker seemed, upon the time of his admission to this institution, quite nervous and agitated. This may be taken as signs of his guilt. _

_Number Assigned: This process has been delayed until after his trial and probable conviction._

_(Note: Because of the serious nature of the crimes Mr. Harker has been accused of and the convincing nature of the evidence presented so far, he and those others accused of being involved in said crimes are to be treated in the same manner as those who have already been convicted of their crimes, up until such a time in which they shall be able to clear their names of all charges.)_

Jonathan hardly slept that night, partly because the only thing he had for a bed was a hard plank, and partly because worry for Mina nagged at him and made sleep seem traitorous. And so, when morning came and the door to his cell was pulled open by one of the guards, he got up feeling as though he had slept hardly at all, and his body ached in a multitude of places from the hard wood against his body. He followed where the guards led, not paying much attention to quite where that was in his exhaustion. It could have been an interrogation room in which they forced him to confess to crimes he had never committed through sheer intimidation and he would have followed just as easily.

But he was not being brought to an interrogation room, he was being brought to eat breakfast. Though he was at first intimidated by that room as well, because it reminded him of the stories he had heard about the new factories being built, with their immense amounts of workers, all sitting in straight lines completing identical tasks. The room that he had just entered – which was a prison and not a factory, a fact which was, perhaps, not comforting – was large, filled with long tables and equally long benches. One half of the room seemed to be for the men, and the other half for the women. Everyone sat, almost completely silent, with identical empty bowls in front of them, waiting to be given whatever food they would be supplied with. Prison guards stood at various intervals, looking at the prisoners suspiciously. Jonathan didn't much want to go and sit down there, but he did.

Luckily, he was able to see Jack and Arthur sitting at a table relatively near him, and there was an empty space beside them, so he hurried over and sat beside them. The three of them said nothing to one another, but the looks they exchanged said quite enough. After all, the emotions that they would have tried to communicate with words were the sorts of emotions that they all shared completely, and that would be awkward to express with words anyway.

They only waited there in the not excruciating but actually rather peaceful silence for a few minutes, and then others who worked for the prison emerged from the same doors that Jonathan had entered by, carrying large black pots and ladles. They walked through the aisle between the tables, ladling out a bowlful of whatever it was in the pots to everyone they passed. When one of them reached Jonathan, he saw that it was porridge. Instinctively, he looked at up at the man who had handed him the porridge and said, "Thank you," with a smile, but that simple friendly gesture earned him several glares from various people near him, both prisoners and staff. Not from Jack or Arthur of course, which was a small but significant blessing. It was clear having others with him here, others who knew the truth of matters and who were on his side in everything would change everything for the better. One of the things that he most remembered about his time as a prisoner in the Count's castle was the isolation of it. He could have gone mad in that place, and he never would have known the difference.

Lost in these thoughts, Jonathan had utterly forgotten about his porridge. Remembering, he picked up his spoon and took a bite of it. True, it was utterly without taste, but it was tolerable. After a few bites, he looked up and happened to glance at one of the tables in the women's side of the room. At the same time, someone on that side lifted her eyes and happened to glance at him.

And so Jonathan met the familiar eyes of his wife.

Mina wore a dress of a bright canary yellow that she would have never chosen to wear of her own accord, and there was an ugly bruise on one side of her face (a bruise which Jonathan felt painfully, instantly guilty for because, yet again, he wasn't there to protect her from _something, _whatever it had been), but she was still very obvious herself, even more so when her face was illuminated with a smile as she recognized him.

At that smile, Jonathan couldn't just remain in his seat and smile at her from across the room. He got up, rushed to her side – she stood up at the same moment, as if she would have run to him had he not executed the impulse first – and put his arms around her, holding her as close to him as he possibly could. "I was so worried about you…" she whispered, quietly enough that only he could hear.

"I'm fine. Are you?" he was referencing the bruise on her face, and she knew that.

"Yes…yes, I am," she tried to laugh, but it didn't come out sounding like one, not quite. "I don't know if either of us will be for very much longer, but I'm fine now."

There was desperation in Jonathan's voice, he knew that, and he knew also that it worried her, but he couldn't have hidden it from her, not then, "We'll be all right, Mina, I'm sure we will." Because his words lacked conviction, Jonathan kissed her gently, hoping that such a gesture would more convincing, but, instead, it merely prompted the guards to take more notice of them.

"Both of you, back to your seats, now!"

Jonathan moved away from Mina slightly, but kept holding onto her hand, and she onto his. "I will not. She is my wife, and I will not allow you to separate me from her."

There was a moment when Jonathan wasn't sure what the guard would say to that, but any hopes Jonathan might have had of sympathy from him were quickly lost. "That's direct disobedience. An hour in the stocks for that, both of you."

Mina reacted to that with a brief wince, but nothing more. Jonathan, however, was more stunned, and Mina ended up being the first one to speak. "The stocks are a punishment that was officially abolished more than twenty years ago. You cannot use them on us."

The guard laughed. "All that doesn't apply when you're in prison, darling. Now, come on, we might as well get this over with." He paused and looked closely at Mina for a second. "And aren't you the one admitted yesterday? You're down for a whipping also."

That news startled Jonathan, but, despite his horror at this entire situation, he realized that this whipping Mina was supposed to undergo must have something to with the bruises on her face. He didn't have a chance to ask her about it, though, because they were both soon being dragged out of the room, and most of the other prisoners were hurrying to follow, like London crowds at the time of a hanging.

_File of Lord Arthur Godalming upon his admission to prison (before the time of his trial)_

_Initial results of the physical examination of April fourth, 1895: Lord Godalming is possessed of a small mole near his left ear. He displayed no signs of any contagious illness or parasites upon his person._

_Lord Godalming was, upon the time of his admission to this institution, mainly cooperative, though he asked many questions as though doubting our proper knowledge of the procedures we were performing._

_Number Assigned: This process has been delayed until after his trial and probable conviction._

_(Note: Because of the serious nature of the crimes Lord Godalming has been accused of and the convincing nature of the evidence presented so far, he and those others accused of being involved in said crimes are to be treated in the same manner as those who have already been convicted of their crimes, up until such a time in which they shall be able to clear their names of all charges.)_

Everything happened so fast, that Arthur wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Mina and Jonathan were clearly about to be punished for something, and it was clearly something that they should not be punished for, but he didn't quite understand what was gong to happen to them, or what exactly they had done – especially Mina, who seemed to have done something yesterday that was causing her to be punished even _more. _Arthur longed to be alone with Jack, Mina and Jonathan, to be able to discuss all this with them, to be able to finally find out what had happened to each of them, and what they all intended to do about it all.

He also longed, at that moment, to confront the guards, to stop Mina and Jonathan from being unjustly punished after everything that they had suffered already. Somehow, it felt to him as though, if he could stop their unjust punishment at that moment, he would be capable of stopping the unjust punishment that all of this was already to the four of them. If he could have enough courage to save Mina and Jonathan from even something so much smaller than all their greater troubles (some of which he refused to even think about, because, if he did, he would never dare to think that they could win again), than he would have enough courage to save them all. At that moment, the most courageous thing he had ever done was to drive a stake through his beloved fiancée's heart, and even then, he had acted to late to save her completely, and he could have done nothing but lose her. He was resolved not to let the same happen again to the remainder of those he cared about.

But at that moment, he was incapable of doing anything but following with the rest of the crowd (and Jack at his side, always there, probably already figuring out some solution to this that Arthur hadn't even considered) and feeling horrified.

The area where Mina and Jonathan were apparently going to be punished was a courtyard of sorts. Somehow, however, the fact that one could see the sky there didn't make it any more comforting a place to be. One was still surrounded by the grey stone of the prison, and beneath one's feet was a type of mud that seemed completely unlike the sort of mud from which any plants could ever grow. There was what Arthur vaguely recognized as the stocks several feet away, looking almost ominous to him. The whole area seemed even more unwelcome when Arthur saw Mina being dragged forward to the middle of the courtyard, and heard Jonathan's voice calling out, "Let go of her!"

Mina mouthed something to Jonathan that Arthur couldn't make out, something loving, the sort of thing a wife would always say to her husband to comfort him (the sort of thing Arthur wouldn't ever hear from Lucy's lips). Arthur, glancing to where Jonathan was being held back, near to where Mina had been brought, saw him calm a bit and nod to Mina in response to whatever it was she had said.

And then it began, in small little movements that seemed to be commonplace to those who accomplished them, but were horrifying to Arthur. One of the guards (there were many there in the courtyard, and they spoke to one another quietly, in hushed tones; those were conversations of which Arthur did not desire to know the contents) took a hold of one of Mina's wrists in each of his hands and lifted her arms above her head at full tension. Another handed a whip to a third and then moved to stand next to Mina, lifting her skirt up – Arthur thought he heard Jonathan call something out then, but he hardly noticed, so lost in his own horror – which bared her back completely to the dozens of convicts standing there watching, as well as revealing a single petticoat, trimmed in yellowing lace, over red and blue striped stockings. This display caused many of the convicts to jeer and call out lewd comments, which made Arthur blush with shame for Mina's sake. But they quieted as the third guard began to lift the whip he had been handed.

It was then that Arthur _should _have said something, done something. But as the whip came down with a crack on Mina's bare back, Arthur was left trembling, relieved that he couldn't see Mina's face then, despite the fact that it surely must be as stoic as her perfectly straight back was, and feeling completely and totally disgusted with himself.

For a time it continued like that, with Mina showing no sign of pain or at least discomfort, at least from the back. Until about the eighth lash, when the guard who was holding Mina's hands above her head adjusted his grip a bit, so that he was holding both her hands with one of his, his hand crushing both of hers together.

Arthur realized the significance of the change immediately, and he knew that Jack did as well, because the look he exchanged with Arthur clearly showed that. But, of course, how could either of them forget that terrible night? Mina, kneeling on the bed in front of the Count with her mouth pressed to his chest, both her hands held together by one of his so tightly that his grip crushed them…

The very same memory must have been coming back to Mina as well, because immediately upon the change her body began to visibly tremble, the shudders growing more and more violent until she lowered her head and retched, the contents of her stomach coming out onto the mud beneath her feet.

Arthur began to wonder at that, the consideration coming in the back of his mind beyond the horror and sympathy, whether, after that night, Mina had thrown up many times, her body instinctively rejecting the substance that had been before forced into it, but unable to do so, because the Count's blood had already seemed into her own, infiltrating her blood stream and starting to destroy her.

She probably had. At the time he had been talking to Jack and Quincey and Professor Van Helsing, though the other three had done most of the talking. He had felt as useless then as he did in the prison, adding nothing to the Professor's plans, and knowing that he would be unwelcome if he went to the Harker bedroom to aid Jonathan in attempting to comfort Mina.

As Arthur considered all this, the blows continued falling upon Mina's back, unfaltering despite her sudden reaction, until finally, after what might as well have been an eternity, they were over and she was unceremoniously dropped into the mud, her face falling into her own vomit.

There was complete and total silence then for a few seconds. No one in the crowd said a word, and Jonathan and Jack seemed frozen with horror, which was how Arthur felt. Mina didn't even move. When the silence was broken, it was by one of the guards who said, seeming used to such sights as that of a woman lying in her own vomit while her back was covered with blood, "Now for the stocks. Get them in there, and then we'll leave them until it's time for them both to be let out. Oh, yes, and you can leave the other two involved in their case here with them. It seems…appropriate."

It was back to awfully systematic movement then, as Mina was hauled to her feet and her shoes and stocking stripped from her, and Jonathan's shoes were pulled from his feet. Then, just as awfully, they were both brought, completely unresisting, to the stocks that Arthur had noticed earlier, and their feet locked in. Arthur saw them grasp hands briefly and then, realizing something or other, let go.

It was not long before everyone was gone, leaving the four of them alone together, just as Arthur had wished they could be. But, somehow, it seemed that none of them could find anything to say.


	3. A Reluctant Ally

"You're lying," Charles Barrrett said flatly, his eyes nervously looking over the four prisoners he was supposed to defend.

They looked at one another as well, knowing exasperated glances that also held a certain despair. For, if even their own lawyer couldn't believe in what happened to them, how would the court do anything but send them back to jail? Finally, it was Jonathan who replied. "We're not. And we're not mad either. Everything we told you really happened, and you can either believe us or not as you see fit, but it's the truth."

It was true that, looking at them, they probably wouldn't be very convincing. They had been allowed to clean with a basin of – thankfully clean – water and a rag before coming to this room (which was a parlor there specifically for the purpose of prisoners meeting with their lawyers – it was an ugly room, but at least made the pretense of being respectable, as opposed to the rest of the prison), which had at least gotten the vomit off of Mina's face, but they were still dressed in the distinctive garments they had been given upon their entrance to the prison, and all of them were in various states of upset, perhaps leading Mr. Barrett, Arthur's family attorney, to doubt their mental stability. Mina kept her head lowered and her hands folded in her lap, and when she did speak – which wasn't often, as Jack ended up telling most of the story to spare the others – her voice was quiet and nearly expressionless. Jonathan quietly trembled for the entire length of the meeting, and never moved more than a few inches away from Mina. Arthur stuttered when he spoke, and glanced often, worriedly, at Mina and Jonathan. Jack tried his best to be calm – someone needed to remain detached of the four of them, and he had to be the one to do that, at least for a little while – but he sometimes felt as though his control was slipping and he was beginning to ramble on like a madman. He wished he had morphine with him.

After Jonathan's statement, Mr. Barrett again looked at the four of them, and one could practically see the wheels of his mind turning. Finally, he seemed to reach some inner conclusion, and he sighed. "All right, let's talk for a moment as if what you're telling me is all true. How do you propose to convince the jury of it?"

"I…I don't know." Arthur's voice was nearly a mutter, as if saying it any louder would cause some catastrophe even worse than the one that had sent them here.

Everyone was surprised as Mina spoke, though she did not look up. "We have evidence. I still have all our journals and letters and telegrams from that time…in chronological order. If we showed them to the court –"

Jonathan was nodding in agreement, and Jack, too, was struck by the reasonableness of her suggestion. "They're at our house," Jonathan said eagerly, "You could go there…"

Mr. Barrett sighed again, this time as though their naïveté exhausted him. "Such documents can be forged. And, especially with them written by the four of you, they could easily be found very unbelievable."

Jack felt obliged to interrupt. "They're not all between the four of us, though they are mostly. There's some by Professor Van Helsing, and Lucy, and Quincey –"

"All of whom are now deceased, if I understood your narrative correctly," said Mr. Barrett. "Therefore, their presence in your narrative, while being unable to come and bear witness for you, could make your version of events even more unrealistic." That silenced the rest of them, and Mr. Barrett, with a grim sort of satisfaction, began to look through the papers in his folder as he continued to speak. "Personally, I suggest that you lie about it all."

"Lie…in court? We can't." But even Jonathan sounded unsure, the way Jack felt. This was a world that none of them had any experience in, and perhaps even the morals that they had so adamantly held to before in their lives (though, come to think of it, they had broken those unspoken laws before, and against the same enemy, only then it had been a sacred crusade, and they could not call fighting for their very lives a sacred crusade) were forgotten here.

Mina seemed to be feeling the same way, as she said, her voice just as expressionless and quiet as before, though it nearly faltered halfway through her statement, "The Count will lie. We have to, or we'll have no defense against him."

No one said anything to that. What could they say? She was right, as was Mr. Barrett. The silence hung in the air for a few moments, and then Mr. Barrett spoke, undoubtedly finding it awkward. "So, I would say that the first lie you make is that this Count Dracula raped Mrs. Harker. The attachment of such a despicable crime to his name would surely make everyone less sympathetic towards him."

There was a gasp; Jack realized that it came from his own throat. At the same time, Mina's face had gone white, and Jonathan had swiftly grabbed one of her hands, his own face set in some kind of resolve. No one spoke. Mina shook her head in a sort of wordless denial of this.

But, really, why was it such a horrible thought to contemplate, making this accusation? If they were to actually do this, they would have to be willing to do some things that might be considered awful, and this would likely be far from the worst of them. He was suddenly angry at Mina's immediate refusal of this, as if she had to _protect _him somehow. "Why not? He would have if we hadn't saved you, Mina. Wouldn't he?"

Again, Mina shook her head violently, but this time she spoke as well, and her voice had finally lost its expressionless quality, for she could not longer hold that. "No. No, he wouldn't have, because I…" At that point, her voice trailed off, and she pulled her hand away from Jonathan's as though it burned her, burying her head in her hands as though to hide any tears she might be shedding.

Jack instantly felt guilty, especially as Jonathan shot him an angry glare, but Arthur, who hadn't done or said much during the entire meeting, put an arm around Jack's shoulders, doing his very best to be comforting.

Mr. Barrett watched the four of them for several long minutes, and eventually seemed to give up on understanding what had just happened between them. Yet again he sighed (it seemed to be a habit of his), and when he spoke, he seemed to have given up on helping you. "Very well. I have other suggestions, but I doubt that you would be willing to take any of them. I will continue to do my best for you case – you are my clients, after all, and your father, Lord Godalming, has always been one of my most loyal clients. But it is my professional opinion that, if you tell the court the same story you have told me, there is little hope for you winning the case. That is all I have to say on this matter. Oh, and, Lord Godalming, your sister wanted me to give this to you."

He handed Arthur an envelope, which he opened immediately. It was filled with money. It took Jack a second to realize what the money might be for, but then the rumors he heard of how common bribery was in prisons returned to him. Apparently, Alice Holmwood could be quite a practical girl when circumstances called for it. Jack couldn't even begin to think of when Arthur would need to bride the guards, but surely they would know when the circumstances called for it.

Looking at Arthur, Jack saw revulsion in his eyes, probably because he had reached the same conclusion about the intended use of the money that Jack had. But he controlled his expression as he looked up at the attorney who was even then gathering up the few things he had taken out of his bag and standing up, readying to leave this prison – such an easy action for him, yet it was one that the four of them could quite possibly never accomplish. "Thank you, Mr. Barrett. I remember your efforts on my father's behalf many years ago and do trust that you will give your best effort to our case."

Mr. Barrett nodded respectfully. "Thank you, Lord Godalming. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Harker, Mrs. Harker, Dr. Seward. I will see all of you on the fourteenth." And with that, he left.

The four of them were yet again left alone, but this time it was only for about a minute, for the guards came soon to take them away. They were supposed to pick oakum – which, if Jack remembered correctly, was some difficult form of labor which involved taking apart old rope so that the fibers could be used for some other, obscure purpose – with the rest of the prisoners until the evening meal. Arthur had to give up some of his newly acquired money in order to prevent the rest of it being confiscated, and then they were brought away, in silence again, all contemplating the ruin of their first hope for freedom.


	4. Testimony of the Villain

_On the sixteenth of April, year of our Lord 1895, Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury heard the case of Mr. Jonathan Harker, Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Lord Arthur Godalming and Dr. John Seward, who have been accused by Count Vlad Dracula of the murders of Countess Ecaterina Dracula, Miss Ileana Dracula, Miss Adriana Dracula and Mr. R. M. Renfield, the attempted murder of Could Vlad Dracula himself, and of breaking into the Count's London residence._

_Mr. Charles Barrett served as the attorney for the defense, and Mr. Simon Whitely served as the attorney for the prosecution._

_The trial could not be completed in the allotted hours when a trial may be lawfully in session, and on that account Justice Richard Brakenbury has ordered that the trial be continued the day following, and for as many days following that as are necessary for the completion of the trial._

A week passed. None of it was quite so awful as the first two days, though often it came close. Mina was whipped once more in that time, and put in the stocks twice. Arthur and Jonathan were each put in the stocks once. Jack was, at one point, slapped across the face by one of the guards after he yelled at him for forcing a man of eighty or more to continue working when he was clearly exhausted and sick.

Jonathan kept a mental tally of these little outrages for the simple reason that he was afraid that Mina wasn't. Among them, Mina had always been the one to record all events that occurred, to note down it all as though to make sure that it was all really going on. But there had been a time, after that horrible night when the Count had forced her to drink his blood, when she had faltered in that, and had not written in her journal for some time. Then, the rest of them had been able to fill the gaps in her story with their own records (for a few days even Professor Van Helsing had kept a journal, at Jack's entreaties), and so, now, when Mina may have either been remembering all of it carefully with a controlled vengeance, or doing her best to forget it (Jonathan couldn't see inside her mind, and she was unable to keep a journal in this place where they were completely lacking in personal possessions), the task fell to Jonathan to remember it all. It was the only thing that he could still do to help anything, if indeed it helped, and so he put great effort into it.

It hurt to even think about. It hurt to count the blisters from picking oakum in Mina's hand every time he held it, to take notice of Arthur's eyes growing dull, of Jack's cheeks growing hollow (so quickly! Jonathan hadn't known that such things could begin to become visible in a week, though it was true that he looked more carefully than anyone else did). But he continued it, partly because of the aforementioned purpose, that of doing Mina's job of recording it all, and also, when the purpose failed him, because he felt somehow that, if the Count was going to take their offences against him and charge them with them in court, he had to remember every bit of pain he had caused them in order to one day, in some as of yet unimaginable way, charge him with them.

Eventually, of course, the first day of the trial came. The Count had, unsurprisingly, requested that all sessions of the trial take place after sunset and, for whatever reason, this request was complied with. And so they had many agonizing hours to wait before they were to be brought away to court, hours that Arthur had bought from the guards with a significant amount of the money sent to him by his sister, the first such purchase he had made since the initial one made out of the necessity of _keeping _the money. It was common practice at the prison for prisoners to be given a basin of water, a lump of abrasive soap and a rag to wash themselves with before their trials, just as they did before prisoners met with their lawyers. And so some of the time was spent with them all attempting to make themselves presentable, more like reasonable people who ought to be believed and less like possibly mad, possibly deceitful convicts out to ruin a respectable man.

This was a goal that they were all desperate to achieve, for this day, and the ones that followed, would determine the entire course of their lives to come. Because of this they all cleaned themselves as thoroughly as possible, scrubbing their faces with the chunk of soap that they had been given until the skin there was raw, and dragging their fingers through their hair in a vague attempt to comb it. Jack cleaned the dried blood from the cuts on Mina's back, there from the last time she had been whipped, two days before – for the modesty between all of them was beginning to fade away, and a casual intimacy, in which jealousy was nonexistent, was beginning to take its place. But, despite all their efforts, there was only so much to do; their clothes, unchanged since their admittance to the prison, stank, and it seemed to Jonathan that everything they had suffered would somehow be written on their faces, there to be misread as guilt rather than innocence. And, after all that, they were somewhat at a loss what they should do for the next few hours. Jonathan briefly wished to be back in the torment and humiliation of daily prison life, just for some distraction from his worry about the coming trial.

The, suddenly, Mina began to speak, detailing (for their own knowledge, though most of them had at least a vague idea of such things already) the likely way in which their trial would operate. Her voice was not calm – it hovered on the edge of hysteria, in fact – but it continued for a time, and the rest of them listened in a vague, disinterested sort of way. Her words kept their minds from actually dwelling too much on the subject of which she talked, but they didn't really matter, as they would all experience them soon enough, and it would not be in petty logistics that their fates would be decided. But after those words, which were little more than a repetition, she said, her voice suddenly banishing its hysteria and becoming organized, businesslike for the first time in more than a week, "When all of us have to give our testimonies to the court, do we have any idea what order we should give them in?"

Jonathan realized then that he hadn't needed to worry about keeping a record of things: Mina had been quietly doing it all along. The thought made him almost smile, but he didn't, and instead he said, realizing that it was the only logical decision, "I'll give mine first. I'm the only one who was there for…the beginning of the story." Was that the way he ought to have put it? It wasn't a story, not really, though Mina had said a few times, reflectively, while looking at the stack of typed of papers always on her desk, that it resembled a bit one of the novels that were so fashionable nowadays. Mina nodded, and so did Jack and Arthur.

After a bit a pause, Mina spoke again, "I should probably speak next." They all agreed, and they also agreed that Arthur should speak after her.

Then, with nothing else left for him to do, Jack said, "I'll give my testimony last. I'll also tell anything that any of you…accidentally left out." They all knew that he meant, _Anything that you don't find yourselves capable of telling, _but they didn't say it. Increasingly, nowadays, Jack seemed to be left in the position of the one least damaged, which was unfair and perhaps untrue, but it happened nevertheless.

It was soon after they had made that decision, however pointless a decision it might have been, when three guards entered the unused storage room where they had spent the past few hours. Jonathan vaguely recognized all of them, but, as he had not made any sort of effort to learn the names and identities of the guards, he could do no more than that. "It's time for you all to come to court. Come," said one of them, his voice sounding bored.

They all glanced at one another, each carefully meeting the others' eyes, hoping that with those looks they could say all the things that they could not say with mere words. It didn't work. And so they all followed the guards through the hallways until they were finally stepping outside of the walls of the prison, which elicited a wonderful sense of relief in Jonathan. Ever since his imprisonment in the Count's castle, he had always intimately connected the sense of imprisonment with particular geographical locations, rather than with the person causing the imprisonment. Because of this, leaving the prison gave him a sudden sense of hope, which mingled with the relief and made him turn and smile at Mina briefly. She didn't notice, as she was keeping her head lowered, but in his present state of mind, that didn't trouble Jonathan overmuch.

They took a carriage to get to the courthouse, the same windowless one in which they had all been brought to the prison in the first place. The ride took about half an hour, which was not spent completely in silence; the guards, this time around, were noisy, talking and laughing heartily amongst themselves. Jonathan idly listened to their conversation for a little while; apparently, they were betting on the sentences he, Mina, Arthur and Jack would receive. At this realization, he tried to stop listening, beginning to feel vaguely sick.

After a time, the carriage came to an awkward, jolting halt, and, a few seconds later, the door was opened by a guard who said to Arthur (as the one nearest the carriage door), "We're going to have to shackle all of you before you enter the courtroom. General policy, especially when you'll be in the same room as the alleged victim. So, arms out, everyone."

Arthur held out his arms as he had been instructed. There was the rattle of chains and shackles were fastened around his wrists, after which he got out of the carriage. Jonathan was next, and obediently lifted his arms to be shackled before getting up, his attention immediately turning to the courthouse in front of him, which was truly an intimidating, and almost awe inspiring building. He had seen it before, of course, but now, knowing that the events within it would decide the course of the rest of his life, it seemed even more terrifying in its magnificence, there in readiness to pass judgment on all who passed through its doors. He took a deep breath, looking at it, and then turned back to see Mina standing next to Arthur, wrists shackled, and Jack getting out of the carriage. But it was only an instant after that when the leather-clad hand of one of the guards closed around his arm and he began being led – not too roughly, because he wasn't struggling – toward the entrance of the courthouse.

When they were all inside of it, Jonathan realized that there was a sort of majesty to the courthouse, especially to him after having so recently been in the squalor of the prison. As the sound of their booted feet on the marble floors echoed in this place where the sayings of Socrates were carved into the walls, it was almost believable that, here, the blindfolded goddess of judgment with her scales would hear their case and dole out retribution for the Count's crimes. Jonathan had always loved the law, and the hope that it might save them in the manner that it was supposed to was seductive, too perfect to be too true and too perfect for him not to hope for it. Again he felt the rush of hope that he had felt when stepping out of the prison, but, this time, he didn't try to smile at Mina because of it.

The courtroom seemed as majestic as the entrance hall to the courthouse had been. The floor was of the same marble that the floor in the hallways had been, and the tables and chairs were glossy, as though the wood had been recently waxed. And it was almost completely empty, with only the four of them, many guards (the ones who had come with them from the prison as well as ones who seemed to work at the courthouse) and a man who Jonathan assumed was the court reporter. Aside from their footsteps and the rustling of papers from the court reporter, the room was silent, as well. There was a peace to it, almost.

One of the guards that had brought them from the prison led them to a table, with four chairs beside it, and a fifth a few inches separate from the others. Mina was guided to the first, Jonathan to the second, Jack to the third, and Arthur to the fourth. Jonathan assumed that the final chair was for Mr. Barrett, though Jonathan couldn't really see the practical point of him being at the trial, as it wasn't as though he was going to doanything to help them. He had made that quite clear at their meeting.

Once they were all seated, the same guard who had led them to the table said, the tone of his voice making it clear that he had said these words many times, to many sorts of criminals, "Put your hands on the table, and don't move them from there until the trial's over. Just general policy."

They all did so, without hesitation. If Jonathan had thought about that a bit more, he would have been disturbed by their willing compliance, but, as it was, he was occupied with examining the courtroom. He was able to identify the Judge's podium, and the seats for the jurors, and he could guess that the many seats in the back of the courtroom were for those who wished to come and watch the trial, a group of people which, Jonathan hoped, was not too large. He also noticed a table identical to the one at which he and the others were sitting, on the other side of the Judge's podium. It only had two chairs at it. Clearly, it was meant for the Count and his attorney, whoever that would be, and the reminder that they would soon be _here,_ in this very room, the hope that had been slowly growing in Jonathan began to diminish, as steadily as it had been growing five minutes before.

There was about five minutes more of the silence, which began to seem nerve-wracking rather than peaceful, and then Mr. Barrett entered, his steps brisk and his eyes firmly fixed on the marble floor as he went to his seat beside them. He muttered his greetings to all of them and took out a portfolio of papers, sorting through them as if there was something he was looking for, but, as his search seemed to take an unrealistic amount of time, Jonathan began to doubt the validity of that excuse. However, he didn't care overmuch. The outcome of this would depend on the four of them, and they couldn't concern themselves with this lawyer who would be completely useless to them.

Almost as soon as Mr. Barrett arrived, another man entered, one that Jonathan didn't recognize. He wore standard looking, plain, professional clothes, and carried a briefcase not unlike the one Jonathan carried – or used to carry, because going to work, like so many other things, had become a distant memory over that week in prison – but he immediately seemed different from a normal businessman because of his startlingly bright red hair, which was something of a mess, in contrast to his clothing, which was immaculate. But he immediately headed for the table where Jonathan had figure that the Count and his attorney were to sit, and so his role in the trial quickly became clear.

If he was the Count's attorney, than he would be their enemy, and so Jonathan began to look at him that way, or at least did his best to, as Jonathan was unused to looking at strangers with the prefixed notion that they were his enemy.

Suddenly, Jonathan realized that he had been paying little attention to Arthur, Jack and Mina, and so quickly looked around at them, checking to see if they were all right. Arthur was quietly trying to engage Mr. Barrett in conversation, an endeavor which seemed to be failing miserably. Jack was, as Jonathan had been doing as second ago, looking at the man who was probably the Count's attorney, and seemed, from the distrustful look in his eyes, to have reached the same conclusion that Jonathan had. And, as for Mina, her eyes were firmly fixed on the door, unwavering.

As the man who was possibly the Count's attorney began to take out papers, doing much the same thing that Mr. Barrett was, Jack leaned over to say something to Jonathan, and suddenly, terrifyingly, Jonathan heard Mina gasp, but it was a gasp of such terror that it seemed more as though it was a scream from someone whose ability to make any sort of sound had been taken away. Of course, the three of them all looked at Mina before a second had passed, terrified that she had been attacked or hurt, or _something._

But they did not find the source of her sudden gasp by looking her, finding only the terror in her eyes, which they could have predicted.

It took Jonathan a few seconds to think of following Mina's gaze, still so fixed, but when he did, he felt like gasping himself.

The Count stood there, by the door, his green eyes locked upon Mina, not in fury, but in a sort of quiet anger, one which was just as terrifying as the fury Jonathan remembered from when the Count burst into the dusty room of his own castle, screaming at those women (his brides, his slaves, dead now). And in his eyes there was the clear message that he would destroy them, slowly and calculatingly. He would have his revenge for all the damage they had done to him, and, in his mind, perhaps there truly was nothing immortal about having them convicted for the crimes he had accused them of. Perhaps he did blame them all for those crimes, and this was simply just revenge.

But it didn't matter what went on in the mind of that horrid creature, and Jonathan didn't want to know, anyway. Not taking his eyes off of Mina, the Count walked to the table where his attorney sat, sitting beside him and leaning over to say something quietly to him. The attorney paid more attention to him than Mr. Barrett was paying to Arthur. No doubt this attorney was extremely well paid.

Jonathan looked away from the Count, back to Mina, who was the one who really mattered, and saw that she had lowered her eyes again, and was biting her lower lip. Jonathan wanted to say something, anything, but he couldn't think of something to say that wouldn't make things worse. So he remained quiet and simply watched, though he knew that the Count was watching Mina as well.

While this was going on, others began to enter, and a dull hum of conversation filled the previously nearly silent courtroom. The stand for the jury filled with men, all dressed in their best clothing (which varied greatly in quality between them) and wearing purposefully serious expressions. The many rows of seats for the public had, surprisingly and terrifyingly, nearly filled in only a few minutes. And, suddenly, Jonathan came to the full realization that, not only would they be telling the stories of everything that had happened to them while the Count watched, the eyes of the people of London, people that they didn't even know the names of, would be on them. And, forever after, whether they won this case or not, whether they lived or died, and whether they lived free or imprisoned, they would be judged by this day. They would be judged by the Count's lies, and by whatever true words they could manage to speak. Jonathan was suddenly glad that they had refused to lie when Mr. Barrett had urged them to. He didn't think he could speak the lies with the eyes of so many on him.

As he thought this, silence slowly fell over the room. It started slowly, with a gradual decrease in the volume of that pleasant hum of conversation, and soon turned to full out silence, total and oppressive, not peaceful as it had been earlier, when the courtroom was empty (silence is the natural state of things in an empty room. But in a full room, it is ominous). At first, Jonathan wondered what had caused it, but then he heard soft, shuffling steps from his left, and turned to see an elderly man in black robes approaching the judge's stand. A clear voice rang out from the man that Jonathan had assumed was the court reporter, "Please rise for His Honor, Justice of the Peace Richard Brakenbury."

There was a disharmonious sound as everyone stood up, most of them in the tired way of one who is doing something out of habit and is resigned to it, but really would prefer to not do it, but the Count in a perfectly composed and calm movement that was somehow both respectful and utterly disrespectful. The four of them stood at almost the same time, though that was a second later than the rest of the room, as doing anything with their hands shackled together was still quite difficult. Soon, the elderly man – Justice Brakenbury – sat, and everyone else did as well.

There were a few official statements to be made, which Jonathan paid hardly any attention to (they didn't matter, they would alter nothing), and then Justice Brakenbury said, with a routine gesture to the table where the Count and his attorney sat, "First, we will hear the evidence of the members of the prosecution. Mr. Whitely, if your client wouldn't mind giving us his account…?"

The attorney, with a respectful nod to the judge, replied with, "Of course, your honor," and then turned to the Count, "Count Dracula, if you please…"

And the Count began to speak, that calm, educated, slightly accented voice again filling Jonathan's ears, and making him shudder. There had been so many evenings sitting in the Count's library, hearing that very voice regale him with tales of historic battles, all while those same green eyes (which were sometimes red, in brief flashes that Jonathan, at the time, was sure he had imagined) were focused on the veins in his neck.

"Some time ago, I wished to buy a house in this land of England. My homeland of Romania was not what it had been in the days of my youth, and I wished, especially for the sake of my daughter, who is – was – just of the age in which it would be time for her to begin thinking about marriage, to move to a place more full of life. I contacted Mr. Peter Hawkins – sadly deceased now, who sent to my home Mr. Jonathan Harker, for the purpose of arranging all the legal matters with me.

"I welcomed Mr. Harker openly into my home. Though I understand that you Englishmen may have different views on such things, it is the custom among my people to be openly hospitable, especially to those who we employ. But when, shortly after his arrival, I gave him a meal, he seemed quite focused on my wife, sister and daughter, to a quite disturbing degree. And, indeed, in the many days that followed, he rarely seemed to take his eyes off of any of them. This culminated when, one night – the fifteenth of May, I believe it was – I heard strange noises coming from one of the rooms of my home. I entered to find Mr. Harker pinning my wife down on the couch, her clothing all in disorder. My sister and daughter were cringing in various other corners of the room, their clothing in similar states, and bruises on many visible parts of their bodies. It was immediately clear to me what Mr. Harker had done, and I was appalled, especially as the crime had been committed by a guest, someone I offered food and a hearth and a bed to."

It took several minutes for the words to fully register in Jonathan's mind, as they were too ludicrous to actually have been spoken. The memory of those awful demon women (thank God they were dead, thank God) crowding around him was all too close, their cold hands on his body with him feel terribly weak and unable to escape…he certainly hadn't attacked them, he hadn't! And Jonathan didn't think he could do _that _to anyone, not even to those women.

But he sat there, dumbstruck, not able to stand and defend himself against those ridiculous accusations, and minutes passed of the Count's speech, calm and unhalting, punctuated only by gasps from those sitting in the audience, but not at all by either of the attorneys or the judge. The Count continued speaking, telling more lies of how he had thrown Jonathan from his house, and how he had gone to England anyway, leaving the women he claimed were his wife, sister and daughter behind because he "no longer felt that I could trust Englishmen, and their safety would be more secured in my homeland of Romania". He told of meeting Jonathan and Mina in the park sometime later (Jonathan remembered that incident well, and quite differently from the way the Count told it), and of Jonathan leading Arthur, Jack and Quincey to break into the Count's home for vindictive purposes.

And, just when it seemed that the lies couldn't get any more far fetched, he began telling another part of the story. "Early in October, I received an invitation from Mrs. Harker, who was then staying as a guest – not an inmate – at Carfax Asylum, which is managed by Doctor John Seward, to visit her there. I would have been loath to do so, except that I had seen what her husband was capable of, and knew not whether he had done cruel things to her as well. I met her outside the asylum, and she led me to her room, where her husband lay sleeping in the bed. Once there, her manner changed, and she begged me, desperately, to do with her things that no married woman should think of doing with anyone other than her husband. When I refused her proposals, she grew angry, and spoke to me wildly, as though I had, by refusing her immoral proposition, done her some grave wrong. Soon after that, the conversation was interrupted by Dr. Seward here, who was discussing how it killed his patient, one Mr. Renfield, if I am correct. Apparently, he believed Mr. Renfield to be incurable, and so…"

Throughout the entire speech, Jonathan was so astonished by the entire thing that he remained focused completely on it and didn't even notice Mina's reaction until she was on her feet, her shackled hands shakingly extended in a mixture of accusation and desperation. Her voice shook as much as her hands, but it was clearly audible, as much as if she had been a trained actor trying to project. Despite the fact that, from the volume of her voice, she seemed to intend the entire room to hear her, her eyes were fixed on the Count, and only on the Count. "How _dare _you. How dare you poison the very air of the room with these foul _lies. _We are innocent all of us, and the only action we took was an attempt to free ourselves from you and your despicable crimes, which, apparently, we are incapable of doing, as you can return from the very dead to torment us!" Her words became directed to the courtroom at large, though she didn't tear her eyes away from the Count. "Listen, all of you. It was he who committed the crimes, he who should be arrested! Lock him up, please, take him away from the world so that he can no longer harm others as he has harmed us! And please, please, _let us go free. _Because Jonathan and Jack and Arthur – they have done such heroic things, deeds that have for more than a year gone ignored, unheralded, and, indeed, we find ourselves punished –"

The insistent sound of the gavel banging against the judge's stand was heard. "Mrs. Harker, take your seat!" Called Judge Brakenbury, though his aged voice sounded unintimidating.

And, indeed, Mina didn't move for a long second. Then, finally, the Count and Mina locked eyes, and, for a brief instant, Jonathan saw the Count's eyes turn red. Mina winced, and sat down, her head lowered.

Jonathan knew instinctively that the Count had _said _something to Mina through that awful mental connection that apparently still existed between them. The thought that the Count was speaking to Jonathan's wife like that, even now, made Jonathan's shackled hands clench into fists. And seeing Mina like that, doing what he had longed to do; speaking the truth, but it making no difference at all, caused an anger, one he had held tight to throughout the Count's speech, to grow, a burning, unfamiliar sensation in him. It made it difficult to sit still, and he felt a resurgence of the desire to stand, as Mina had, and let that ever-increasing anger pour out in passionate, uncontrollable words.

But he did not, and the Count's lies grew predictable, now that Jonathan was somewhat used to them. He talked about how Mina had apparently killed the women he called his 'wife, sister and daughter' out of some sort of murderous jealousy, and how Jonathan and the others had injured him, but he had been saved by his loyal servants, who brought a doctor to tend to his injuries. By the time it was over, all four of them seemed to be trying their hardest not to listen. At the end, the Count's attorney – Mr. Whitely – asked the Count some questions in order to clarify a few of the things he had said, and then it was Mr. Barrett's turn to question him.

Mr. Barrett did, astonishingly, make a vague attempt to poke holes in the Count's account of things, but the Count had a way of putting things that made all the objections sound ridiculous. And, whenever they neared a dangerous point of discussion, Jonathan had the feeling that the Count was altering the minds of many of those in the courtroom. After all of that ludicrous display was over, the Judge declared the first day of the trial over, and the court out of session. They would all return the next day. Jonathan did not look forward to it.

In the commotion of everyone's exit, while those of the general public who had come to watch the trial talked excitedly about it amongst themselves, the four of them and the Count, were the only ones silent, though Jonathan thought that perhaps their reasons for being so were difference.

Back at the prison, Jonathan felt even more despairing than he had in the courtroom as the Count recited his lies. The four of them were quickly separated and brought to their separate cells, and, lost in thought, Jonathan didn't realize that a larger than normal group of guards was bringing him to his. That is, he didn't notice until the door to his cell had closed behind him and the five guards who had brought him there were not showing any signs of leaving.

One of the guards approached him, an ugly sneer on his face, "So, you're a rapist, eh?"

Jonathan shook his head frantically, hating being judged by the Count's lies even by such people, whose opinion really didn't matter to him. "No, I'm not, I'm really not…"

The same guard laughed and continued. "That's what they all say. We know better than to believe them. And, in this prison, we don't like rapists very much. In fact, we like to give them a taste of their own medicine…"

He only had a brief moment to feel shock and dread, and then the first of the guards was on him, pushing his face down into the stone floor and pulling his prison clothes off of him in a way that made them tear.


	5. An Unacceptable Alternative

The next morning, no one stopped Mina from sitting next to Jonathan, Jack and Arthur at breakfast. What they did do, however, was call out insults and taunts as she did so. She kept her head up, though, refusing, especially with the shameful memory of the Count's eyes so firmly fixed upon her, to let them have any power over her.

Jonathan, however, seemed to be having far more difficulty doing that. He kept his eyes firmly lowered and fixed upon the food he was eating, and he flinched at the slightest things. That fact worried her far more than anything the guards could have said, because she remembered Jonathan soon after he had returned from the Count's castle, and his current state reminded her much of that time.

She didn't have much time to reflect on any of that, however, because the words of one of the guards broke through her thoughts. "Look at them now, the worst of humanity all gathered together! And think of who they were before the ended up here! The doctor, the teacher, the solicitor, the _nobleman."_ He laughed, and spit in Arthur's face as he said the final word. "Lucky for the whole world that they're locked up now, isn't it?"

The others laughed, and another guard turned his attention to Mina. "And look at her, the adulteress, trying so hard to be modest. Think about it, all those times she's been disobedient, we never realized that we could easily get a good fuck out of her, if she was so eager to give herself away to that man who testified yesterday." That guard reached over to touch Mina lewdly, who pulled away instinctively.

Jonathan got to his feet. "Don't touch my wife."

The whole group of guards laughed. "The rapist wasn't so strong willed last night, now was he? I could actually say he almost enjoyed it, didn't he?"

Mina turned to Jonathan, her plight forgotten. "Jonathan? What are they talking about?"

"It doesn't matter, Mina," Jonathan said hastily, but he didn't meet her eyes.

She was about to protest that, yes, it did matter, but then another guard rushed over to the others, who had been tormenting Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur, this one brandishing what appeared to be a newspaper. After a few moments, the newspaper was flung upon the table, where it was hesitatingly picked up by Jack, who dropped it only a few seconds later, as if unwilling to read its contents.

Although she knew she would regret it, Mina picked it up as well, and, as soon as she saw the headline, felt instantly sick.

_LONG-SUFFERING NOBLEMAN TELLS OF ATROCITIES AT TRIAL!_

And it continued:

_At what will perhaps be the most infamous trial of our age, yesterday, Count Vlad Dracula confessed the atrocities committed against him by Mr. Jonathan Harker, Mrs. Wilhelmina Harker, Dr. John Seward and Lord Arthur Godalming, a group of hardened villains who have conspired together to ruin this poor man's life…_

Mina wanted to read no more of it, and, without a moment of hesitation, ripped the newspaper in half. Almost immediately, one of the guards hit her on the face. "Put her down for destruction of property," he said almost immediately, and the guards soon moved on to other objects of their ridicule. As soon as that happened, Jonathan put an arm around Mina's shoulders, holding her close to him, and she knew better than to ask about the previous night at that point.

Across the table from them, Jack and Arthur spoke quietly together, saying what Mina hoped were words of comfort to one another. For this would all be tolerable and perhaps possible to get through if they were able to give one another comfort, as they had back when the Count had waged his first attack on them, by means not so legal. In fact, of that time, it was the silences that she recalled with the most pain, the things she should have told Jonathan, the times she should have comforted Jack, as no one else bothered to, the moments when Arthur lapsed into silently painful reminisces. The rest of the time – when she let Arthur cry on her shoulder, when Jonathan first told her of the things he had experienced in Transylvania – seemed far more tolerable, at least with the rosy haze of memory.

They only had a few moments of that, however, and then they were sent to continue picking oakum – they couldn't risk paying for more time alone two days in a row, for fear that they might not be able to do so at a time when it was more essential.

As with most things in the prison, the oakum picking rooms, filled with long, hard benches and buckets of tar-hardened rope, were divided by gender. As with the bribery, Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur wordlessly agreed not to attempt sitting together twice in a row, and Mina went to sit with Elizabeth, as she had every day since the first day that they had done this.

As the guard patrolling their area gave the signal for them to begin, and both Mina and Elizabeth reached down to pick up the first hank of rope from their buckets, Elizabeth asked Mina, her voice a practiced whisper, "How did the first day go?"

Mina began to twist the rope between her hands to begin freeing the fibers. She wasn't very good at it – her motion wasn't anywhere near as efficient and practiced as Elizabeth's – but she managed it. "Not…not well at all," she said, not looking directly at the other woman, and taking a deep breath before continuing. "The man who's accusing us of the murders also accused Jonathan of raping the women I apparently killed. And me of attempting to…to betray Jonathan with him."

Elizabeth made a sound of sympathy, sliding her rope across her knee. She was ahead of Mina, who hadn't yet completely untwisted hers. "Did they rape Jonathan yet, then?"

Mina froze. _"What?"_

The guard nearest them called loudly, "You, over there, keep working unless you want an hour in the stocks!"

Distractedly, Mina began to roll her piece of rope across her knee, an action which had, in the weeks previous, made her canary-yellow skirt even more tattered than it would have been otherwise. It also had made her hands, which had previously been rather too soft for this sort of work, perpetually raw and bleeding. But she wasn't paying attention to that, especially as Elizabeth nodded and continued to speak, her voice far too casual for what she was saying.

"A couple of the guards, particularly him –" she gestured toward an imposing looking man with a thatch of straw colored hair, "like to do that to the rapists. They say it's…what's the word…"

"Ironic," Mina said. Her voice was emotionless.

"Yes, that's it. Anyway, if they haven't done it to Jonathan, they probably will soon."

Mina remembered Jonathan flinching at breakfast, and the guard's lewd comment. She nodded, but said no more to Elizabeth. Elizabeth, seeing that this was clearly a topic Mina didn't feel like discussing, returning to focusing on her work, humming slightly under her breath as she did so.

For the next several hours, Mina worked almost automatically, paying little attention to the countless hanks of rope in her hands. For all those hours, a single thought remained at the forefront of her mind. _I hate him. _For it all returned to the Count, didn't it? He was the cause of all of it.

Blaming him was so easy then, out of his presence. But sitting silently in the courtroom, his eyes upon her as he spoke lies…how hard it was then not to let fear overcome her hatred completely! For hatred was like a fire; it took energy to keep it burning. But fear was instinctive, especially when faced with the gaze of his red eyes.

After what seemed like no time at all in the void of Mina's thoughts, she, Jonathan, Arthur and Jack were called out of the room to leave for the second day of the trial. As Mina stood, smoothing her skirts and brushing fragments of hemp off of them, Elizabeth whispered, "Good luck," and gave her a quick, unexpected kiss of the cheek. Mina tried to smile at her, but failed.

The carriage ride to the courthouse was just as silent as it had been the day before, at least on the prisoners' side. The guards, of course, spoke just as enthusiastically to one another as always. As they got out, all four of them obediently lifted their wrists to be shackled.

The courtroom looked just the same as it had the day before, except that the Count and Mr. Whitley were both already there, and deep in discussion. Mina expected the Count to say something mentally to her, something terrible and unendurable. To her relief, he did not, and she spent the several minutes until the rest of the courtroom arrived in relative calm, though she glanced at Jonathan carefully every few seconds. Arthur and Jack, seemed to be all right, pretty much.

The seats for the public filled up even faster than they had the day before. No doubt it was the newspaper articles. Corruption, scandal…it all fascinated the public, they were drawn to it as if the journalists were each the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

When the formal preliminaries were over, Judge Brakenbury said in his thin, weak voice, "Now we shall hear the testimony of the defense. Mr. Barrett?"

Mr. Barrett stood, looking rather as though he didn't want to be there. "Yes, your honor?"

Judge Brakenbury's hands closed around the wood of his desk as though he was struggling to keep himself upright. "Which of your clients is going to speak first."

"Mr. Harker, your honor." Evidently, either Jack or Arthur had explained their intended procedure to Mr. Barrett.

The judge nodded. "He may begin."

Mr. Barrett sat down, nodding to Jonathan, who stood, looking around him nervously. Finally, he began to speak. "It's true that I did…I did go to Transylvania to sell a house to Count Dracula. Carfax Abbey…it's a building, rather old and in need of repair, but still beautiful, adjacent to Carfax Asylum, where Dr. Seward works." Jonathan swallowed hard, then continued. "I arrived at the Count's castle on what I learned that night was the eve of St. George's day. The Count himself arrived to greet me, and, though he claimed that all his servants were asleep that night, it seemed to me that the castle was entirely deserted.

"He was quite cordial to me at first, having a good meal prepared for me, and going so far as to have long conversations with me about the history of his people. But, as the time went on, I began to notice…quite odd things about my host." Jonathan paused, as if unsure whether he actually wanted to say what he was about to. But he did. "First, he only came to speak to me during the night, and I had no idea where he was during the day. He also reacted very violently when he saw me wearing a crucifix and having cut myself while shaving. And…and once I saw him climbing down the wall of the castle, headfirst."

There were gasps from almost all of those listening, and the scratching of pen on paper as all the journalists in attendance hastily took note of this most fascinating statement. Mina ventured to look at the Count. He appeared mildly surprised, but more exasperated than anything else. Odd. She had not thought him at all a good actor.

Jonathan continued. "And then, one night, I had fallen asleep in a room of the castle other than the one I was staying in. When I awoke, I saw that three women had entered. They spoke to one another, saying things about how they were each entitled to part of me, or something…"

_There are kisses for us all, _Mina remembered, the words Jonathan had recorded in his journal returning to her unexpectedly. She almost interrupted Jonathan to tell him, but all the possible disadvantages of that dissuaded her rather quickly.

"I wanted to get up, but I didn't feel as though I could," Jonathan was speaking faster, as though in a hurry to get it over with. "And one of the women climbed on top of me, and her teeth were long and sharp, almost like fangs, and then she leaned down and almost bit my neck, but the Count entered, and he yelled at all three of them, and said that I wasn't for them, but that he had brought something else instead, and he gave them a bundle – I heard crying from it, it sounded like a child – and, the next thing I remember, I was back in my room, but the door was locked, and I couldn't leave."

After that, Jonathan calmed down a bit. The worst was over. He told about the rest of his stay in Transylvania, about finding the coffins and the wolves surrounding the castle, and the woman coming screaming for her child, all in relative calm, his words slower and more measured. He ended with telling of his escape from the castle, finishing with a long exhale, as though he had just run several miles.

There was almost perfect silence in the courtroom for a few seconds, though, to Mina, the air seemed heavy with disbelief. Judge Brakenbury broke the silence, his serene expression nearly unchanged. "We shall now pause for a period of fifteen minutes before Mr. Whitely poses his questions to Mr. Harker." He gestured, saying that they were free to go, and was helped out of the room by the court reporter.

The courtroom cleared, noisily. Mina tried not to listen to what was being said, forcing herself to hear it all as an indecipherable hum, but she was already certain of their reactions; she had felt them herself, when she had first learned of Jonathan's sufferings in Transylvania. But her opinion had changed slowly, as she read over his diary, watching his handwriting turn messy with fear, and her intuitive trust in him had been confirmed by the reassuring, accented voice of Professor Van Helsing. But, under the gaslights of the courtroom, the story told in Jonathan's uncertain voice, Professor Van Helsing laid to rest, what could possibly change the opinion of everyone there?

Her companions scattered almost as quickly as the spectators to the trial had. Jonathan was drawn outside to talk to a journalist (she saw Mr. Whitely hurry after them, as though to prevent Jonathan from saying anything too realistic), Jack left to use the lavatory, and Arthur went outside to speak to Mr. Barrett, and, possibly to watch Jonathan and Mr. Whitely. Even the guards left, following the others. Evidently, she was the least dangerous of the four of them.

It wasn't until the courtroom was completely empty that she realized she was alone with the Count.

She placed her shackled hands in her lap and kept her head lowered, willing herself not to look up at him. Perhaps, if she only didn't meet his eyes…

But she heard footsteps, growing slowly closer until they were right beside her chair, and she did look up, to see him standing far too close, almost towering over her sitting form.

He reached out, the tips of his fingers barely brushing over her cheek. His skin was as cold as she remembered. "Mina. It's been far too long."

She wanted to sound strong and defiant, but the words came out as a plea. "Don't touch me."

He laughed. She remembered his laughter. It was an unpleasant sound. "I can do whatever I like, Mina. Do you think anyone cares?" His hand trailed down over her neck, lingering at the veins there. "But I shall respect your wishes, for now." And he drew his hand back. Somehow, that didn't feel like a victory on her part.

Without pausing, he pulled out the chair where Jonathan had been sitting, turning it to face her, and sat down in it. His voice and expression were calm, as if he was discussing something entirely inconsequential. "As I am sure you are aware, I can easily control the sentences that you and your dear friends receive. It would be a…simple matter for me to ensure that you see your husband hanged."

Mina shuddered, an involuntary movement. She hadn't wanted to react to him at all.

She saw a slight small on his face at her reaction, but it was soon gone, replaced with that same inappropriate calm. "But it would also be a simple matter for me to drop all charges against them, to let them go free." He laid one of his hands over hers, far too affectionate a gesture. "And I very well might, if you comply with me."

She didn't need to ask what he meant; it was written in the very blood in her veins. "Never."

His hand folded over hers, gripping them as tightly as he had that terrible night. "We shall see how long your resolve lasts, my dear."

And, in an instant, he had let go of her hands and was on his feet and, quickly, back on the other side of the courtroom, as others began to return. As Jonathan came back, an excited looking journalist leaving his side to go sit down with the rest of the spectators, she asked him, her voice as gentle as she could possibly make it, "Are you doing all right in all of this?"

Jonathan nodded, sitting down where the Count had sat an instant before.

As soon as he was given permission to question the defense, Mr. Whitely stood up theatrically, moving from behind the desk where he had been sitting beside the Count. "Mr. Harker, you said that the castle inhabited by my client seemed deserted to you, aside from my client himself, when you first arrived?"

Jonathan nodded.

"And you arrived there on…the fifth of May, did you say it was?"

Again Jonathan nodded.

"What day would you say that you met these demon women you claim to have seen?"

Jonathan paused. "I'm afraid I don't quite remember…"

"May fifteenth," Mina said quietly, but loudly enough that Mr. Whitely heard her.

He continued. "May fifteen. Then, you stayed in the castle for ten days before meeting them?"

Yet again, Jonathan nodded.

"And so you expect us to believe that you remained in a building with four other people for ten days and were completely unaware of the existence of three of them, enough so that you would consider the place looking deserted?"

Jonathan frowned. "It was a very large building, and the Count instructed me not to go exploring through it."

"Yes, but you did spend much of your time in the dining room and library, and other such places where anyone would have to spend at least _some _time, is that not correct?"

Jonathan seemed suddenly angry. "Yes, but, I told you, they're not _human. _They don't need to go have supper in the dining room!"

Mr. Whitely smiled indulgently. "Now, we're all men of science here. We're not going to be taken in by some foolish tell about demons and werewolves. You might as well just drop that façade and let us discuss the parts of your story that have at least some hope of being slightly accurate."

There was laughter from the crowd. Jonathan seemed too embarrassed – or angry – to defend himself.

Mr. Whitely moved on to another topic. "Mr. Harker, I do hope you won't take offense, but I am going to ask you a few questions of a slightly more personal nature. Now, this woman who sits beside you…she is your wife, correct?"

Jonathan glanced at Mina. "Yes, yes, she is."

Mr. Whitely took a few steps forward, appearing to be contemplating his next words carefully. "Is the marriage between you and this woman…ah, how shall I say this…consummated?"

Mina bit back an angry retort, though, in truth she was baffled by the question. She was proud, however, of Jonathan's reasonably calm response. "That is between me and my wife."

Mr. Whitely nodded. "I understand. I merely wished to ascertain that you are…well, sexually attracted to women."

There was more laughter from the spectators, as well as a few gasps at even the suggestion of such a thing.

Mina nearly sighed. Really, it would be ridiculous if Jonathan got accused of _that _on top of everything else.

This time, Jonathan sounded completely confused. "Yes…yes, I suppose I am."

"Because," Mr. Whitely continued, "the encounter that you describe with these women sounds unmistakably sexual in nature, and yet, you deny that you were at all attracted to them. It seems to me that either you are not attracted to women, or that, contrary to your story, you were attracted to these women who certainly behaved, according to you, in a sexual manner far unlike that of any proper English woman, in which case it would seem to me that you likely acted upon that attraction, which makes my client's story far more plausible than your own."

Mr. Whitley's logic was ridiculous, as it all seemed to be based around a world of completely amoral people who acted on every impulse, but his voice, with its smooth but precise consonants and long vowels, made it all sound far more plausible than it really was. And, Mina had to admit, in comparison with the tales of vampires and shape shifting, any logic must have seemed realistic to those listening.

Things continued in that way for some time, until Mr. Whitely finished his cross examination, which lasted exactly until the time when the court was supposed to get out, as if it was a perfectly timed theatrical performance.

Once Judge Brakenbury declared the court no longer in session, the guards unceremoniously pulled Mina, Jonathan, Jack and Arthur to their feet and began to lead them out of the courtroom. As she walked away, head down, Mina head the Count's voice in her mind, _If ever you change your mind, you need only tell me._

She said nothing in response.


	6. Near the Breaking Point

Arthur awoke on the third day of his trial feeling as though he hadn't slept at all.

There was good reason for that, of course. His bed now was a plank of wood and whatever rags he could manage to find to pad it (some of the other prisoners, ones he did not know, had talked of bartering amongst themselves for such things, but Arthur had little idea how those sorts of transactions would be conducted, and suspected that the other prisoners might laugh at him if he asked), and despite the fact that it was now indisputably spring, the nights remained cold. As if those were not enough factors to prevent him from getting a good night's sleep, there was also the sound of the wind, for his cell was near the outer wall of the prison, and the wind always seemed loud there.

But none of those were quite why he couldn't sleep. No, he had been thinking of Lucy again.

It was probably rather ridiculous of him to be thinking constantly of his fiancée even a year and a half after her death, even in the midst of a trial that could condemn him easily to death. Surely Jack was not lying awake at night thinking of Lucy. But Arthur couldn't help it, especially there in the prison where there was so little to distract him from the memory of her. In the blank stone walls and tedious, thoughtless work that characterized his time there, it was so easy to let his thoughts stray to ones of her, to reminisce over his (too few, oh, too few!) conversations with her.

And, indeed, he had spent the past two days of the trial watching the Count fearfully, nervously, wondering who this man was who had loved and destroyed Lucy as surely as Arthur had. Before the first day of them, he had spent no significant amount of time in the same room as the Count, having seen him only in brief flashes, during moments that he could only barely recall clearly, they had been so full of sudden activity.

Having now spent many hours in his presence, Arthur wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. He had the nobility, the aristocratic air that Arthur had grown up being taught to respect. But, beneath it, Arthur thought he could see the hints of who he actually was, of his cruelty, his barbarity. But they were so far hidden…he could, if he was honest with himself, understand why all the court seemed to believe his word over that of a rag-tag group, dirty from prison, with shackles on their wrists.

When he was completely honest with himself, he admitted that, if he had been in the place of all the spectators, he would have believed the Count too.

The world seemed different from inside the prison. He couldn't explain why, even to himself, but it was as though he had been blind to a great part of the world before he had been sent there, and now that he had seen it, he would never be able to forget it again.

He thought of the party he had been at just before his arrest, Cecily Weaver and his sister Alice and all the fine, kind, well meaning people there, and nodded to himself. Yes, he would never be able to see the world the way they did again.

That was rather how he felt after all the events with the Count, in fact, when he returned home from Transylvania with Quincey's body and a great weight upon his heart. It had been true – he wasn't able to see the world the way he had before then, not anymore. But this seemed, somehow, an even greater change in perspective. And he didn't think he'd ever be able to describe it.

In the middle of his musings, the door to his cell was opened, and he was ushered out into the throng of other prisoners going to their breakfasts. He went almost without a thought – this, like so many other things, had become practically routine.

On that day, like the day before it, Arthur sat with Mina, Jonathan and Jack. And, again, no one stopped them from doing so. But it seemed to do them little good, as Mina and Jonathan both seemed even more withdrawn that day than they had the previous one. In fact, they seemed hardly to be looking at one another, or at Jack and Arthur.

They hadn't gotten like that when they were all fighting the Count the first time. Especially not Mina, Mina who had been their protecting angel, the beacon who they all rallied around, Mina with her typewriter and her lists and her clever ideas.

Suddenly, Arthur was struck by a terrible thought: if Mina had given up, then none of them would be getting out alive.

As happened every day, guards soon began distributing porridge among the prisoners. Luckily, this time, it was not the guard who always gave Arthur hardly any and whispered taunts about his status as a nobleman as he passed. Arthur thought he would probably need all his strength for the day to come.

However, when they had all received their porridge, Mina pushed her bowl away. "I'm not very hungry today…would anyone else like this?" she asked, her cheerful smile utterly unconvincing.

Jack pushed the bowl back towards Mina. "You should have it," he told her kindly, with a voice that held behind it his authority in such matters as a doctor, "it's your turn to give your testimony today, remember?"

Mina nodded. "Yes, I remember. But I'll be fine without, I promise." She didn't sound very convincing.

No one took the porridge she offered, and the silence between all of them quickly began to become awkward. Attempting to break it Arthur, cleared his throat. "Should we…" He felt rather as if he was saying the sort of thing that Mina or Jack ought to be saying, but neither of them was saying it, so the job fell to him. "Should we discuss our strategies for…for winning the trial?"

Jonathan laughed, sounding more bitter than Arthur had ever heard him. "I think we're past the point where strategies will do us any good."

Jack nodded. "At this point, it seems that the only thing we can do is to tell our stories as honestly as possible and hope that –"

"That the truth prevails," Mina finished for him, smilingly uncertainly.

Jack smiled back, though his smile was more sad than uncertain. "That's what the Professor would have said."

Mina's voice was quiet again. "I know."

At that moment, it was clear that their minds were all turning to kind, eccentric Professor Van Helsing, of his commitment to helping them, of how he would have managed this entire situation differently.

But Abraham Van Helsing was dead, along with Quincey and Lucy and Arthur's father, and there was no one other than each other who they could rely on now.

Soon after that, breakfast was over, and they were led to the oakum-picking room. Arthur, surprising even himself, rather found himself relieved to get to that part of the day, when at least he was spared having to make such awkward conversation with his closest friends. And, indeed, though he sat with Jack and Jonathan as he did every time they had to pick oakum, none of the three of them said a word within the entire stretch of time that they spent working. Indeed, when one of the guards announced that it was time for them to go to the trial, Arthur felt terrible dread in the pit of his stomach. He would rather stay there picking oakum for eternity than endure another day of the trial such as the two that had already elapsed.

It seemed as though, every day, the four of them were arriving at the courtroom later and later – the first day, they had been the first ones there, the second, the Count and his attorney had arrived first, and on this, the third day, many of the seats for the general public were already filled by the time they walked through the doors of the courtroom. It was rather a more unpleasant experience this way.

As they entered, there were scattered whispers from the audience – Arthur couldn't hear the contents of them, but could imagine what they were saying, and felt himself blushing, even though he was perhaps the one of them who had been least accused so far throughout this entire travesty. He couldn't imagine how Jonathan might feel.

For it was an odd and terrible feeling, to be hated that way by those who one hadn't even spoken to. And the realization, which seemed to reassert itself every few minutes, that this same hatred was directed towards Jack and Jonathan and Mina…it made him long suddenly to protect all of them, to be uncharacteristically brave and hurt any who said cruel things about them.

Of course, he'd never do that sort of thing. Arthur wasn't capable of heroics, and he didn't harbor any delusions about himself.

The four of them settled down in their seats, placing their shackled hands on the table as they had grown accustomed to doing. As Arthur's eyes absentmindedly scanned the crowd, he saw Alice's face among all the unfamiliar ones. He looked away quickly, before she could make eye contact with him. He didn't want to explain anything to her that day, even if only with his gaze.

The preliminaries were dealt with, and Mina was instructed to begin her account. Arthur watched carefully as she stood, her face carefully school to indifference.

"On the night of October second, 1893, I was staying with my husband, Jonathan Harker, at the asylum owned by our dear friend John Seward – not as patients, but merely as guests. I had been having difficulty sleeping for several nights before that one, and thus took a sleeping draught before going to bed that night.

However, it wore off rather more quickly than expected, I assume, for I awoke what I believe was a few hours later, to find the room that Jonathan and I shared utterly filled with…" her voice wavered for the first time, "with a sort of odd, cold mist. This seemed to me to be…quite out of the ordinary, and I tried to wake Jonathan to tell him, but –" her voice broke – "but I could not. And then the mist about me cleared, and, in its, place, a man stood beside my bed – the man who today brings this case to court."

That calm statement seemed to take the remainder of her self control, for, at that point, something within her seemed to Arthur to collapse, and her sentences afterwards were rambling and badly structured, her voice panicked and desperate.

"I knew who he was, I knew that he was the man who had done all those horrible things to Jonathan in Transylvania, who had killed Lucy –" Lucy had not yet been mentioned in any of their testimonies so far, but, it seemed, Mina had forgotten that fact, "and I should have screamed upon seeing him, I should have run from the room, done _something, _but I was so terrified that I couldn't, and perhaps that was weak of me, but I simply could not do anything else, and then he spoke, he pointed at Jonathan and said…he commanded to be quiet, he said… 'if you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your eyes', and of course I couldn't do anything then, because I knew that he would, that he was perfectly capable of doing something like that to Jonathan without a moment of regret, so I stayed quiet, and he…oh, he put one of his hands on my shoulder and used the other to push my head back, and his hands were oh, so cold, and he said –"

Again her voice broke, and a sob escaped from her as well. Arthur wanted to, _needed _to do something to help her, but there was nothing he could do, and she just kept speaking, heedless of the tears running freely down her cheeks, though they made her voice hoarse and strained.

"He said, and he smiled as he said it, he _smiled, _and he said, 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet, it is not the first time, nor the second that your veins have appeased my thirst,' he said that just as though it was a commonplace ordinary matter, and then he put his lips to my neck and bit me there, and then he drank my blood…" she laughed slightly, desperately, though she did not stop crying as she did so. "He drank for a very long time, or at least I think he did – it's very hard to tell, you see, when someone is drinking your blood, quite how long it's taking, because every second might as well be an hour. But I think it was a very long time, because I was, oh, so weak by the time it was over, and I really didn't feel capable of doing anything, but he did stop eventually – well, obviously he did, or I wouldn't be alive to talk about it, but he did stop, it did _end, _I suppose. Only then, then he said…"

Her voice trailed off into silence, and she began to sob, choked, half sobs, as though she was desperately trying to contain herself but was terribly, humiliatingly incapable of doing so. The courtroom was completely silent.

"Please continue, Mrs. Harker," Justice Brakenbury said.

Her voice sounded awfully hollow to Arthur, especially when punctuated by her sobs. It reminded him rather of the way she had sounded on the night of the events she was describing, except that then she had been capable of forming actual sentences. "He said to me, 'And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to…to hunt and frustrate me in my designs. You know now, and they know in part already…what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me – against me who commanded nations, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born, I was countermining them. And now you, their best beloved one…"

The sobs overpowered her again, briefly, and Arthur saw her lift her hands to try to put them in front of her face, but realize that they were shackled together and stop.

"…'their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin; for a while, and shall later on be my companion and helper. You shall be avenged in turn, for not one of them shall minister to your needs. But as yet…"

Suddenly, she sounded terrified, vulnerable, as if it were all happening again or would soon all happen again, as if those events weren't over and done with, as if their lives hadn't moved on to different struggles. She was terrified and vulnerable as she had not even been directly after the events, as she could only have been when first she heard those words spoken.

For a moment, Arthur felt as though he saw her the way only the Count must have seen her. It made him quite uncomfortable.

"…you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says come to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding. And to that, end this!' And then, then he grabbed my hands and held them tightly, so tightly, with only one of his, and he opened his shirt, and he opened a cut in his chest, using only his nail – I don't know how he did it, I don't, I suppose he must just have inhumanly sharp nails, I've never really thought about it, I'm sorry, but he opened a cut and I saw his blood spurt out and he grabbed my neck – his hands were so cold again – and he…he pressed my mouth to the…I had to drink the…I didn't want to, I tried not to, but he pressed my head down so hard and I felt as though I would suffocate, and the blood was everywhere, and I didn't want to, I didn't, but I couldn't do anything else, and…."

She was completely and fully overcome by sobs then, seeming to completely collapse, her shoulders slumping in, her head falling forward on her chest until she finally just laid it on the table and didn't even try to control herself any longer.

And it was at that moment, when terribly, inexcusably, Simon Whitely, the Count's attorney stood, looking completely and utterly in control of himself. "Justice, may I proceed with my cross examination of the defendant?"

Justice Brakenbury nodded – Arthur felt uncharacteristically violent urges toward the old man – and Mr. Whitely moved away from the table where he sat with the Count and walking towards the center of the room, as though getting ready for a climactic monologue in some Shakespeare play.

"I must admit, Mrs. Harker, that this has been quite a convincing act. But it has not swayed those of us who still have some logic in our heads, I assure you, and such people now surely hold you in the greatest contempt, for it is terrible to attempt to use such tactics to change the opinion of the jury." He smoothed his tie, his movements crisp and quick as he did so. "It is difficult to find a place to begin when discussing this fiction of yours, but I believe I must first act – how do you claim that my client got into your room on this night?"

Mina's voice was hardly above a hoarse whisper. "I don't know. I think…I think he was in the building already, but he could have come through the window, perhaps…I don't know."

"Through the window?" Mr. Whitely's voice was incredulous. "Now, what floor was your room on?"

"I don't know!" Mina cried out desperately, sounding as though all the world around her was bombarding her with attacks of every variety. "I think it was on the second floor, but it doesn't matter because, if you don't believe that Jonathan and I have told the truth about…about _him_ not being human, then you'll never believe the rest of what we say."

Mr. Whitely nodded as though considering this. "Why, then, did you have a man who you knew to be an enemy of your husband's in your bedroom in the middle of the night?"

Arthur could hardly hear the sarcasm in Mina's voice through her tears. "I didn't exactly _want _him there."

Again, Mr. Whitely nodded. "Presuming for a moment that your far fetched story of demons is real…what exactly would have been the purpose of my client…ah there's no way to put this delicately…drinking your blood, and you drinking his?"

Mina bit her lip so hard that Arthur worried she might draw blood. "To…to change me…" She stopped, and seemed to be again making an effort to compose herself. "I do not wish to talk about that."

Mr. Whitely looked around at his audience triumphantly. "It seems that there was a weak spot in your story after all, Mrs. Harker!" He seemed to be waiting for applause. "I believe that I'm finished with this defendant."

Justice Brakenbury nodded and struck his gavel. "Court is dismissed for the day."

Mina hardly seemed to hear, and neither did Jonathan, who stared straight ahead, his white hair looking even more startling suddenly. Jack leaned over to Arthur and whispered in his ear, "I'm afraid that we don't have much of a chance anymore."

Sadly, Arthur nodded.


End file.
